codes?!? in homer's and tragedians' intros

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chad
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codes?!? in homer's and tragedians' intros

Post by chad »

this sounds bizarre, and i don't find co-incidental patterns interesting, but i haven't heard about this before and i'm wondering if anyone here has heard about this and whether it's been generally approved/rejected:

i'm just reading The Homer of Aristotle by D Margoliuoth, Oxford 1923 who says that there was a practice of all Greek tragedians, mentioned in Diogenes Laertius, of inserting cryptic signatures in the tragedies to prove their authenticity. It then sets out for each of the plays of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus, re-arrangements of the letters in the first 8 lines (grouped into 4 sets of 2 lines) which contain the following messages:

lines 1, 2: the signature, containing the author's name or identifying description,

3, 4: the chronogram, containing the olympiad number in which the play was composed,

5, 6: the homage to Athena,

7, 8: the admonition, ironically warning the reader not to look for further codes after the 6th line.

i could type out some of the codes: there's pages of them: but they're all set out in the book. at first glance they appear quite convincing: much more believable than the "homer codes" in the next chapter...

the author says that the tragedians' practice developed from the codes at the start of homer's!?! works... a tradition which italicus did in fact perpetuate, recording his name into his latin translation of the iliad. the iliad code (which comes from re-arranging the first 2 letters, then the 2nd 2 letters, &c of each line: that's why this code seems a bit empty to me) is short enough that i can type it out now (as the people queueing to use the computers here in this public lib scowl on):

Ὁμήρου Ἰήτα’ ὄπ’ ἐξίλλων ὅρων, ὦ οὖλε δαῖμον, δηίας ἐναντίας, τῆι δύσε η[it' e1dute pe/nqh 0Orfe/wj: mi/mn' u3daq', a#pte d' oi[a pu=r ai1aj ce/naj. a#yw d' 0Axillhi\j xa/rij Troi/hi du/w: Danaoi/ te dh\ sa& t' h0u\j w} Ai0ne/a te/kea di/x' e1llax' e1rg'. ei0 d' 1Erisi klei=' eu] ποίεον, ο3 τ’ )αθηναίης βουλαῖς χ’ ε3ληις σκέψευ τέλος.

...which the author translates (1923-style):

Into the voice of Homer of Ios, "expelling" [referring to the etymology of Apollo] from the bounds,
O gracious deity, the contrary fiends,
Enter even as you entered the laments of Orpheus;
Waters stopped, like fire they kindled strange lands.
Let me, the Achilleis, a gift to Troy, kindle two;
Of the Danai and thy children, brave Aeneas,
The allotted lands are sundered. And if I have
composed with skill takes for the powers of Strife,
Consider what tribute tho wilt take for the counsels of Athene.

There's also one for the Odyssey...

So i was wondering if people have heard about this, or whether it's just a re-construction out of nothing (this definitely seems more likely for the homer codes than for the tragedy codes, which were attested in ancient times and are consistent across all the plays). the homer codes seem a bit forced for homer's (simpler) language...

btw, since the authorship of the "Rhesos" isn't clear: the old critics apparently thought it was by sophocles; today it's ascribed to euripides but peck mentions that the authorship is unclear:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/pt ... d%3Drhesus

this is a bit interesting: the signature code in the first 2 lines suggests that it's by sophocles: the author re-arranges the lines to form:

ἄλλασσ’ ἄκροιν γ’ ἄρρητ’ ἐποῖν τραγωιδίας στρέφ’ ἔπη σὺ δ’ ἔκλεγ’ ἐκ Κολωνῆθέν γ’ ἔβην

which is translated by the author as:

Substitute unspoken words for the topmost couplet of the tragedy:
Twist the words and pick out: I started from Kolonos.

i'll mention again that i'm not pushing this as a theory: just passing it on because it's a bizarre theory which i haven't heard mentioned before, to do with the books i'm reading. :)

Eureka
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Post by Eureka »

Morning, Chad.
The problem as I see it, is that the classical-era codes appear to be smaller and simpler than the Homeric codes (going by what you've said). This is counterintuitive. You'd expect coding to become more complicated as the tradition develops. Also, Homer's code seems to be saying something quite different from the later codes.

It would be interesting to see if anyone has done a counter experiment. That is, take random pieces of writing, and see if supposed 'codes' can be found in them.

chad
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Post by chad »

hi eureka, i completely agree w/ you; like i said i find the homer codes suspicious anyway because it's such a forced "hidden" text that it sounds like it's been pulled out of nothing. it's actually the tragedy codes that are a bit interesting, because (1) they're actually attested in diogenes laertius, and then (2) the 4th couplet (lines 7 and 8 ) can be made to say "don't waste your time re-arranging the letters of the 4th couplet" across all tragedies of aeschylus, sophocles and euripides, using the same verbs for re-arrange/twist, and referring to "4th couplet"...

the author basically relies on these 2 facts to argue "beyond co-incidence" for the existence of the codes. i always stubbornly reject these numerology hidden code secret meaning arguments instead of wasting the time thinking about them, but this one might be different, i don't know, and so i'm wondering if people who've studied these texts (like at uni or something) and have researched their authorship/dates have come across this before. :)

GlottalGreekGeek
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Post by GlottalGreekGeek »

Very interesting, though more for the tradgedians than Homer. Whenever my Greek is up to the level to follow this kind of thing, I will.

swiftnicholas
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Post by swiftnicholas »

Yeah, I haven't seen this post before, thanks for bringing it to my attention GGG. I'm interested to look at that book you mention, Chad; have you read or thought any more about this? I'm very skeptical of things like this, but I was fascinated to hear that it is mentioned in at least one ancient author. And does it really seem to work well for all tragedies?

~N

Skylax
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Post by Skylax »

Hello !

Clearest allusion to a "code" appears in a poem by the elegiac poet Theognis of Megara :

[Theognis of Megara, lines 19-30]
Kyrnos, as I work my craft let a seal be set upon
These words of mine, and they will never be stolen unremarked,
Nor will anyone change the good that is there to something worse;
And this is what everyone will say: 'These are the lines of Theognis,
The man from Megara' -- famous throughout all peoples.

Κύ?νε σοφιζομένῳ μὲν ?μοὶ σφ?ηγὶς ?πικείσθω
τοῖσδ᾽ ἔπεσιν· λήσει δ᾽ οὔποτε κλεπτόμενα.
ο?δέ τις ἀλλάξει κάκιον το?σθλοῦ πα?εόντος.
ὧδε δὲ πᾶς τις ??εῖ· Θεόγνιδός ?στιν ἔπη
τοῦ Μεγα?έως· πάντας δὲ κατ᾽ ἀνθ?ώπους ὀνομαστός.


But there is no certainty about what was this "seal".

One can add logically that the authenticity of the poems had to be checked only by Theognis himself, because if many knew the seal, so all could imitate the poems. So the seal was useful only if Theognis alone knew it.
:?

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