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Macedo 2011 in between poetry and ritual 1

Classical Quarterly ?? Printed in Great Britain doi S JOSÉ MARCOS MACEDO IN BETWEEN POETRY AND RITUAL IN BETWEEN POETRY AND RITUAL THE HYMN TO DIONYSUS IN SOPHOCLES ? ANTIGONE ?? It may be said that the ideal of reciprocity between gods and mortals underlies ancient Greek religious practice and permeates most of its hymns And an ideal it is indeed for a number of rhetorical strategies employed by the hymnic poet are in fact an attempt at transforming an unequal relationship in which humans are subordinated to gods into a relationship of coordination characterized by the mutual exchange of essential goods in the case of hymns praises in the form of word and song are exchanged for divine favours and gifts One creates as it were a ?ctitious scenario in which there exists between deity and worshipper a link of reciprocal bene ?t by means of the o ?ered hymn In the hymnic diction it is not unusual for the poet to ask the deity whether he or she could lend his or her favour to the hymn he is singing the present object of his devotion and by means of this very object he counts himself devoutly ?t to worship the godhead whose help he is requesting In so far as the worshipper focusses on his own hymn and devotion for better propitiating the deity many hymns are characterized by a clear progression from the universal to the particular from the timeless to the here and now from myth to performance in the dynamics of their composition Let ? s see how this works in a hymn of great re ?nement the hymn to Dionysus corresponding to the ?fth stasimon of Sophocles ? Antigone On the idea of reciprocity in Greek religion and in its hymns see R Parker ? Pleasing thighs reciprocity in Greek religion ? in C Gill N Postlethwaite and R Seaford edd Reciprocity in Ancient Greece Oxford ?? J M Bremer ? The reciprocity of giving and thanksgiving in Greek worship ? in ibid ?? and C Calame ? Variations énonciatives relations avec les dieux et fonctions poétiques dans les Hymnes homériques ? MH ?? at ?? ? Contrats de réciprocité ? See also R L Hunter Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry Cambridge ? Power particularly when it is power over us is an uncomfortable poetic subject because praise of the powerful can never be simply praise ?? it always contains a recognition of our vulnerability and an attempt to protect that vulnerability by ??buying o ? ? the powerful with praise ? A few words on the distinction between hymn and prayer might not be unsuitable here The divide between them is admittedly uid but one may say as does S Pulleyn Prayer in Greek Religion Oxford ?? that prayers spoken or sung by individuals are petitions addressed to a deity that refer to a libation a votive object or a sacri ?ce o ?ered in the present or the past