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PINDARANDEURIPIDESONSEXWITHAPOLLO
EmilyKearns
TheClassicalQuarterly/Volume63/Issue01/May2013,pp5767 DOI:10.1017/S0009838812000699,Publishedonline:24April2013

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Classical Quarterly 63.1 5767 (2013) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S0009838812000699

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PINDAR AND EURIPIDES ON SEX WITH APOLLO

Among the most characteristic motifs in Greek mythology is the sexual union of a god with a mortal woman and the resultant birth of a hero. The existence of hexameter poetry listing the women thus favoured the famous women in the underworld in the eleventh book of the Odyssey, and above all the Eoiai is evidence of an interest in the women involved, not only in their heroic sons, and suggests that already at an early date the theme was the object not merely of passive reception but of an active consciousness. The Eoiai, indeed, saw such unions as an integral part of an earlier and better age, when mortals and immortals were closer:
, (fr. 1 W)

But it was not to be supposed that such a potentially rich theme would receive a unitary treatment. Already in their first appearances at least, the first appearances for us many individual stories are clearly distinguished by their different circumstances. A common variable is the existence, the kind and the degree of difficulty experienced by the woman as a result of the encounter. Polymele, for instance, mother of Eudorus by Hermes at Iliad 16.17992, has seemingly no difficulty in leaving her child to be brought up by her father while she goes on to marry a mortal husband. But suffering of some sort is perhaps more usual, and famous sufferers include Cassandra, punished for spurning Apollos advances; Danae, first imprisoned by her father in a brazen tower to prevent her pregnancy, and then locked in a chest with her baby and set afloat on the waves; and Semele, destroyed when her lover Zeus appeared to her in his true form. Such different experiences could suggest further multiple versions of the same general theme, diverging especially in the consequences of the union (or attempted union) for the mortal partner. Even the same characters could potentially undergo quite different variants of the story; the chief constant is the unfailing popularity of the mythical motif. It is not surprising that the myths in Pindars epinicians should include several divinemortal unions. The difficulties and dangers of such liaisons are highlighted in the Coronis narrative of Pythian 3, but there the blame is thrown squarely on the mortal woman: it was her choice to begin an affair with a mortal man while pregnant by Apollo. In Olympian 6, the linked stories of Pitana and her daughter Euadna, made pregnant by Poseidon and Apollo respectively, show both heroines facing difficulties: Pitana must hide her maidens child in her bosom/clothes () (31) and sends her newborn daughter away to be brought up by Aepytus in Arcadia, while Euadna faces her foster-fathers anger, and (before the childs paternity is revealed by his father at Delphi) abandons her baby at birth. But since a major part of Pindars programme is usually to reflect glory on to the victor from the mythological origins of his family or his city, it is natural that any difficulties experienced by the characters of his narrative should be subordinated to a positive, indeed glorious, outcome; and with the exception

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of Coronis, whose story is introduced with a rather different and more clearly paradigmatic purpose, this is true of the experiences of the mortal women partnered by the gods as well. It is also natural that Pindar, who refuses to speak ill of the gods,1 should depict these liaisons in terms which avoid suggesting any wrongdoing on the part of the divine lovers. Whereas numerous and well-known myths tell of the sufferings of the mortal women favoured (for instance) by Zeus, in Olympian 9 Pindar shows a considerate Zeus making decent provision for his ex-lover Protogenia the daughter of Opous, bestowing her and her unborn child on the childless Locrus, who is happy to receive them. But nowhere is the theme given such a glowing treatment as in Pythian 9, to which I shall now turn. When the nave temple servant Ion, in Euripides play, hears a rumour that Apollo has fathered a child on a mortal woman, he speculates (4447) on what would happen if the gods were subject to human justice, naming Zeus, Poseidon and Apollo as the deities most likely to be affected, and it is indeed these three who feature by far the most frequently in mythical traditions of this sort. Of the three, a potential partner should she have been given the unlikely luxury of a choice might well look on Apollo as the best bet. One must assume of course that all the Olympians, with the possible exception of Hephaestus, would be physically attractive, but it is Apollo who is consistently and explicitly described as such. He is young, with the uncut hair of the not yet fully adult, and as such he is unencumbered by wife and family, unlike his father and (probably) his uncle; a woman who became his lover would not need to fear the persecution of a jealous wife. In Pythian 9, Pindar takes full advantage of these features to paint a very attractive picture of the divine lover. But if he is celebrating a victory won at a festival in honour of Apollo, it is also the victory of an athlete from Cyrene, and the picture of Apollos partner Cyrene/Kyrana is equally important.2 Indeed, both must be considered together in order that the treatment of their union should make sense.3 The poem gives an imaginatively detailed portrayal of what a sexual encounter between divinity and mortal might be like, but as is usual in Pindar, the narrative is anything but linear; it plunges straight into a first brisk version of the story, moving without warning from Cyrene the city to Cyrene the girl, carried away by Apollo to Libya, then turns back on itself to give Cyrenes genealogy, before pausing the action at the moment she is first seen by Apollo and reprising the story in the form of a prophecy (made to the prophetic god himself!) from the centaur Chiron. Cyrene is introduced as a wild girl, a (6),4 from the windswept gullies of Pelion, itself a wild and exotic area, who will become the ruler of a lovely, fruitful land: nature to nurture. She is a representative of that wondrous folktale creature, the girl who rejects womanly pursuits in favour of superior masculine activities, in this case subduing the wild beasts which trouble her fathers herds. It must go without saying that she is beautiful, but the distinctive point is that she does things which even in mythology are surprising for a woman

1 As he states for instance at Ol. 1.523 and Ol. 9.3541. This is, of course, a rhetorical strategy of the poets persona: see e.g. A. Khnken, Pindar as innovator: Poseidon Hippios and the relevance of the Pelops story in Olympian 1, CQ 24 (1974), 199206; D.E. Gerber, Pindars Olympian One: A Commentary (Toronto, 1982), 89. 2 On the connexion between Cyrene and Telesicrates, see for instance A. Carson, Wedding at noon in Pindars Ninth Pythian, GRBS 23 (1982), 1218. 3 The following account of the CyreneApollo narrative makes no claims to originality or completeness, and is offered primarily to clarify the ensuing discussion. 4 The primary meaning of in this context is huntress, but the word must retain some of its etymological force.

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and which certainly bear little resemblance to the everyday life of contemporary women and girls. So if there is a touch of humour in the hyperbolic description of her battling a lion with her bare hands,5 we are still prepared to be as impressed with the sight as is Apollo. When Apollo first sees Cyrene, it is clear that he is not merely experiencing lust at the sight of an attractive young girl. He is struck above all by her qualities as an individual her strength, her courage and heroism. And, as Chiron points out, he is led by his feelings to dissemble, pretending not to know her identity or his future relationship with her, as he asks the old Centaur for advice. Most importantly, he does not simply approach Cyrene and grab what he wants, but defers to the opinion of an elder; Chiron, appropriately situated in Lapith country (13), here seems to play the same sort of role of tutor to Apollo as he does more commonly to Heracles and Achilles, and we have the impression that Apollo is a very young god, perhaps embarking on his first love affair.6 He asks Chiron whether it is for him to make love to Cyrene, and that it is indeed permitted is implied by the ceremoniousness with which the act is surrounded, and also in the language used in the poem: (13, 67) is ambiguous, though perhaps used more frequently of a lawful marriage, but more tellingly Apollo has come to Pelion as Cyrenes or husband (51). Obviously, we know that theirs cannot in fact be a permanent union, but the poet has gone to some trouble to describe the liaison as though it were in fact a marriage.7 Their child, too, will apparently be superior to the normal grade of divinely begotten heroes; Earth and the Seasons will make him immortal, and (as Aristaeus) he will be called by the names or titles of Zeus and Apollo. The picture is consistent from the first rapid rsum of the story, through Chirons detailed prophecy, to the final brief statement of the prophecys accomplishment, but its emphatically positive nature is clearest perhaps in the first presentation (513). Apollo does indeed snatch (, 6, cf. Ol. 9.58) Cyrene, yet the effect is not really violent but more that of the fairytale prince who whisks the heroine away, sweeping her off her feet, and he transports her in a golden chariot to a new and magical existence. The venture is favoured by Aphrodite in person, who welcomes her Delian guest with gentle hand and graces the marriage bed with aids.8 Above all, the poet reinvigorates a mythological clich, emphasizing how astonishing in fact it is that a human and a divine partner should come together in the act of love: Aphrodite is presented as fitting mixed and mutual wedlock to the god and the daughter of mighty Hypseus, (13). Apollos action is truly a divine blessing.

5 Thus plausibly S. Hornblower, Thucydides and Pindar (Oxford, 2004), 101; cf. B. Gentili on the whole scene, in Gentili et al., Pindaro: Le Pitiche (Rome and Milan, 1995), 235 (di intonazione serio-comica). 6 On Apollo in the ode, see L. Woodbury, Apollos first love: Pindar, Pythian 9.26ff, TAPhA 103 (1972), 56173, and Cyrene and the of marriage in Pindars ninth Pythian ode, TAPhA 112 (1982), 24558 (= L.F. Woodbury, Collected Writings, ed. C.G. Brown, R.L. Fowler, E.I Robbins and P.M. Wallace Matheson [Atlanta, 1991], 23343, 396409 respectively). On Chiron, note the variant in Apollonius Rhodius (2.50910) that Aristaeus, child of Cyrene and Apollo, was brought up by him, and see further E. Robbins, Cyrene and Cheiron: the myth of Pindars ninth Pythian, Phoenix 32 (1978), 91104. 7 Cf. esp. C. Carey, A Commentary on Five Odes of Pindar (New York, 1991), 6970, pointing out also the connexion with the Alexidamus story in the last part of the poem. On see P. Giannini, in Gentili et al. (n. 5), 597. 8 On the meaning of this phrase, and the significance of in the two works here compared, see below, p. 61.

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From here to the unhappy world of Creusa in the Ion may seem a long distance. Here, surely, we are at the other end of the scale for divinehuman unions. I do not propose to spend time on interpretations which see little problem, within the plays own framework, in Apollos behaviour.9 For it is not only Creusa herself who objects to it; Ion, like many of Euripides characters, is quick to point out the gap between what the gods actually do and their function as arbiters of morality for mortals (43651). Again, at the plays opening, Hermes is quite explicit that Apollo achieved his union with Creusa by force (, 11), and this is never contradicted.10 However, those who see the Apollo of this play in a positive light are right to point to the element of beauty in the description given by Creusa in her monody, and it is this that I propose to examine now. The monody has been much studied, and a single link with Pythian 9 suggested in passing by Zacharia, yet further links appear not to be have been fully explored.11 The similarities cluster near the beginning of the second, metrically mixed, part of the monody, the point where Creusa begins to address Apollo himself, and it may help to set out the most striking parallels in a table: , , (88796) (5) (6)

(11, of Aphrodite) cf. also (36) (13) (12) (910)

It will be seen that the echoes are not so close verbally that they immediately and inevitably recall the Pindaric passage to the mind of anyone who knows it; but the cluster of related motifs in the compass of a few lines of each poem is none the less striking. Once we are alerted to the comparison, we can explore the detail and find further points of contact. Apollos golden hair, as seen by Creusa, is of course traditional, and on its
9

Such as, notably, that of A.P. Burnett, conversely blaming Creusa (Catastrophe Survived: Euripides Plays of Mixed Reversal [Oxford, 1971], 10129, esp. 1279, and more extremely, Human resistance and divine persuasion in Euripides Ion, CPh 57 [1962], 89103), but also, from a feminist perspective, N.S. Rabinowitz, Anxiety Veiled: Euripides and the Traffic in Women (Ithaca and London, 1993), 195201. One does not have to condemn Apollo completely to find such approaches wrong-headed. See the more nuanced accounts of e.g. D.S. Conacher, Euripidean Drama (Toronto, 1967), 26785, K.H. Lee, Euripides: Ion (Warminster, 1997), 33, and K. Zacharia, Converging Truths: Euripides Ion and the Athenian Quest for Self-definition, Mnemosyne Suppl. 242 (Leiden, 2003), 10249. 10 Despite Rabinowitz (n. 9), 1978. 11 Zacharia (n. 9), 945 suggests that in having Creusa complain of Apollos Euripides was thinking of Chirons opening words at Pyth. 9.3941, with at 41. But as can be seen from the table above, there is also an / parallel relating to an earlier part of Pindars poem. Woodbury (n. 6 [1972]), 566 n. 22 takes Creusas monody as contrasting with Pyth. 9; L. Swift, The Hidden Chorus: Echoes of Genre in Tragic Lyric (Oxford, 2010), 96 n. 93 picks out Pyth. 9 as an example of contrast with Creusas monody, but neither goes even as far as Zacharia.

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own would not suggest a Pindaric connexion; indeed, in Pindar it is Apollos chariot that is golden, not his hair. But it is noteworthy that the commonest word used for Apollos hair is , not as here; he is and ,12 which Pindar varies in giving him the epithet , echoed in Euripides . The lovely Euripidean description of the golden petals of the flowers Creusa is picking and their match to Apollos hair does not correspond directly to anything in Pythian 9, although Pindar is fond of gold and golden colours, and at least in his later poems of colour evocation in general.13 But we might consider the contrast here with the second part of the Cyrene narrative. Both poets mention the activity the girl is engaged in when she is accosted by Apollo: Cyrene the superwoman is wrestling with a lion, while Creusa is picking flowers, a stereotypical girls occupation of the sort no doubt despised by Cyrene along with weaving and girls suppers (1819). Flower-picking is a useless occupation suggestive of happiness about to end, while also of course having sexual undertones (the girl will be picked like the flowers a metaphor used by Pindar at line 37, to pluck the honey-sweet grass of her bed), and above all recalling the rape of Kore in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.14 The details of Creusas story here are cast in a more traditional mould than those of Cyrenes, and it is the contrast that sets the tone: if Euripides draws on the picture of Apollo as lover in Pythian 9, it is in order to create the opposite effect. The beauty which shines through this part of Creusas lyric narrative serves, as many readers have seen, not to undermine her version of events but to underscore the contrast running through the whole piece between Apollos beautiful but heartless world and the sufferings of his unwilling partner and their child. Euripides Apollo without further ado takes hold of Creusas white, aristocratic wrists; Pindars asks Chiron whether it is right to lay his hand on Cyrene, while Aphrodite touches the chariot that brings the lovers to Libya with gentle hand, very different from Apollos application of force. Creusas cry for her mother, of course, has no analogue in Cyrenes story (no mother is mentioned for Cyrene, and she herself protects her fathers herds), but is pathetically suggestive of a very young girl (we might think of Achilles comparison of the weeping Patroclus to a little girl at her mothers skirts, Il. 16.710). But Apollo brutally ignores her cries, and when Creusa in retrospect calls him the context gives this a very different implication from the corresponding phrase in Pindar, which as we have seen emphasizes the marvel of the union and the privilege for the human partner. Apollos behaviour is characterized by , a strong word which chimes with and opposes the union of Apollo and Cyrene, where Aphrodite cast lovely over their sweet bed in other words, their delight in each other was enhanced by a degree of modesty, restraint and mutual respect (a subjective sense), as well as protection from prying eyes (an objective sense).15 Aphrodite is of course present in both narratives, but whereas in Pindar she is a beneficent and gentle figure presiding over the nuptials of the divinehuman

12 : Hymn. Hom. Ap. 134, where the young Apollo claims his attributes and hence establishes his personality; Il. 20.39, Pind. Pae. 9 (A1 Rutherford) 45, etc. : Pind. Ol. 6.41, Ol. 7.32; however at Pyth. 2.16. 13 On gold, see D. Steiner, The Crown of Song (London, 1986), 1267; on gold, light and colours, J. Duchemin, Pindare: pote et prophte (Paris, 1956), 194228; on colour, from which sphere he excludes gold, S. Fogelmark, Studies in Pindar with particular reference to Paean VI and Nemean VII (Lund, 1972), 1548. 14 But also Io in Aesch. Supp. 44, 539, with similar effect. 15 Cf also Woodbury (n. 6 [1972]), taking the opening of Chirons speech (3941) as a commentary on this line.

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pair, for Euripides she appears to be involved in some underhand dealings with Apollo, in which Creusa is the innocent victim: Apollo is doing a favour to Cypris.16 We might perhaps detect further verbal play in the few lines of Euripides in which these Pindaric parallels are clustered. In particular, places shift their location and meaning. Cyrene inhabits the or gulfs of Pelion, while Creusa is occupied in picking flowers which she places in her a fold of her dress, or her lap, a word which in this sense frequently suggests the interiority of the female body (compare Pitana in Olympian 6, above). And the holy cave ( , 30) which the wise Chiron inhabits, from which Apollo asks him to emerge, is transformed into the cave on the Athenian acropolis, a place of shame where the rape takes place ( ) and where Creusa abandons her baby. The plethora of linking motifs between the two short passages (Pyth. 9.513 and Ion 88796) invites an intertextual approach in which the whole monodic narrative can be seen to grow in complexity through a more general, sustained allusion to Pindars original. Cyrene and Creusa, as their respective occupations show, are protagonists of diametrically opposed type: Cyrene super-strong, competent and heroic, a worthy partner of Apollo, and Creusa young, inexperienced and vulnerable. Apollo admires Cyrene and creates if not a relationship of equals, at least one in which there is a real rapport between the partners, while Creusa seems to be merely an object to satisfy his lust; this difference is highlighted in the very different approach of the god to the two women, with admiration, hesitation and concern for propriety in the first case, which as we have seen is depicted as though a marriage, and with brutal unconcern for Creusas reaction in the second which the girls cry to her mother marks out very clearly as a rape.17 The subsequent experiences of the two women are also very different. Cyrene, we are told in both the initial rsum of the story and in Chirons prophecy, is established by Apollo as a ruler ( , 7; , 54); she is, in other words, the glorious archgetis of the city of Cyrene, the same from which the victor Telesicrates hails. Such status marks her out, scarcely less than her original choice of pursuits, as exceptional among women. Creusa, despite her name, has no power at all, but is completely at the mercy of others. Abandoned by Apollo as soon as his desire is satisfied, she is alone, frightened of what her mother the same mother she called on to protect her will do when she discovers her daughters pregnancy,18 and eventually forced into what seems to be generally regarded as a somewhat degrading marriage with a foreigner.19 Yet of the two it is Creusa who gives voice to her own story; Cyrene is seen only through the omniscient narrator and the male gaze of first Apollo, then Chiron. While this no doubt in part reflects the habitual practice of
16 Wilamowitz in his commentary (Euripides: Ion [Berlin, 1926], 127) thought that in wird die Gttin kaum gefhlt, and indeed the primary reference of the word in context should presumably be to Apollos sexual satisfaction; but the phrase as a whole suggests a personal form of Cypris also. Compare Hermes doing a favour for Apollo in the prologue, 367, by whisking Ion away to Delphi; immortals help each other out but neglect mortals (how much trouble could have been spared if only Creusa had been made aware that her child had been saved). On the present phrase, see also J. LaRue, Creusas monody: Ion 859922, TAPhA 94 (1963), 12636, at 1323. 17 Hom. Hymn Dem. 616, with Richardsons comment ad loc. (p. 153). 18 In my view the contrast, and the risk of confusion if an earlier use of the word were to have a different reference, makes this much the more plausible meaning of . There would be no reason to get rid of the baby in the cave with a mothers fear, rather the opposite. Lees argument against this, ad loc., quoting M. Huys, The Tale of the Hero who was Exposed at Birth in Euripidean Tragedy: A Study of Motifs (Louvain, 1995), 956, is not to my mind conclusive. 19 Implied at 612, 28993, 81314.

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the two authors,20 it is also, and relatedly, a significant factor in the comparison. Cyrene has no need to tell a story which both recounts her good fortune and sheds glory on her, but for Creusa the narration, despite its shamefulness ( , 8601), is an attempt to redress the power balance by its bitter accusation of the god, as well as a revelation of her own suffering.21 As for the fates of the children of the two unions, while it is true that Euripides play will look forward to a glorious future for Ion and his descendants, for the moment they could hardly be more divergent. Aristaeus will have a destiny far above even what is usual for the sons of gods and mortal women; as if a divine child, he will be nursed by goddesses who will feed him ambrosia and nectar, so that he becomes immortal and is known by the names of Zeus and Apollo (5965).22 Creusas child is not conveyed from his mother to divine nurses, but abandoned, handed over by her not for care but as prey to birds, and as far as Creusa knows he is not only mortal but actually dead ( , 9023). The true version of events, however, shows that Ions story in at least one respect resembles that of Aristaeus: as Aristaeus is taken to his nurses by Hermes (5961), so, we have learned from the tragedys prologue, the newborn Ion is taken up by Hermes at Apollos request and brought to Delphi, to be found by the Pythia (2849). The appearance of Hermes, who describes himself as servant of the gods ( , 4) may be partly motivated by the desire to keep Apollo himself from appearing in the play, and to show other deities (Hermes, Athena) helping to clear up the mess he has made, but it is none the less another link between the two narratives. Apollo himself is characterized most centrally and importantly in his behaviour towards the two women: the considerate, ideal lover versus the glamorous veneer which conceals a brutal rapist. But there is at least one more point of comparison between the two Apollos, and that is the reference to prophecy. Both texts are of course concerned with Delphi: it is the setting of Ion, and Pindars poem celebrates a victory won at Delphi. In Pythian 9, Pindar plays on the Delphic connexion by casting the second, longer narrative of Apollo and Cyrene in the form of a prophecy, and by making Chiron, who gives voice to this narrative, refer respectfully, reverently even, to Apollos superior prophetic powers (449). In Euripides, Creusa taunts Apollo with his occupation of the prophetic shrine: she herself will make a proclamation that is truer and more to the point (90711). In the one case, Apollo playfully conceals the powers which mark him out as truly divine and lift him momentarily from the narrative in which he is involved ( , .); in the other, his prophetic function is an irrelevance, a faade concealing his true nature. More than this, Ion as a whole shows Apollos predictive powers to be sadly lacking, as we see from the prologue statement of Hermes (712), based on Apollos instructions, that the recognition of mother and son will take place back at home, rather than in Delphi presumably without the dangerous misunderstandings which in fact threaten to derail the whole affair. The divinity of this Apollo almost makes him less, rather
The only female speakers in Pindars epinicians are Medea (Pyth. 4.1356) and Themis (Isthm. 8.3645), both giving prophecies and speaking from a position of authority. 21 On voice in lyric (specifically choral) narrative, see the suggestive remarks in R.B. Rutherford, Why should I mention Io? Aspects of choral narration in Greek tragedy, CCJ (=PCPhS) 53 (2007), 139, esp. 1618. 22 This is appropriately the experience of Apollo himself, nursed by Thetis with nectar and ambrosia (Hymn. Hom. Ap. 1205). Euripides plays with the contrast between the birth of Apollo and that of his son; see below, p. 64.
20

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than more, than human, for his knowledge is limited by an incapacity to understand human emotions in full, and hence an ignorance of the likely course of events. Of course there are motifs in the monody which have no counterpart in the epinician. Beside prophecy, there is music, in which Apollo indulges, uncaring, while his son is left to die ( <> , 9056); Creusa here refers back to the opening of her address to Apollo, where again she pictures him playing the kithara (8814). This is a powerful contrast which works quite independently of the references to Pythian 9, where there are no allusions to the musical side of Apollo (except of course for the lyric form itself). Creusa ends her song by moving from Delphi, via further reproaches, to Delos, which may pick up on a hint (but no more) in Pindar. Apollo is a Delian guest when he and his bride are received by Aphrodite in Libya, perhaps because his journey has taken him south across the Aegean and his son will have links with the Aegean islands,23 or perhaps simply for variatio. But the reference in Euripides is clear: Delos is mentioned to contrast the holy birth pangs ( , 921) of Leto and the birth of Apollo himself with his lack of concern for the birth of his son. Creusa boldly maintains that Apollos birthplace must loathe him because of his treatment of his son and herself. There are many textual uncertainties in Creusas monody, most of which are of no concern to us here. But the conclusion, in fact the reading of the final word, may point again to a relationship with Pythian 9. The transmitted text of lines 9212, , is awkward and difficult to explain.24 Most recent editions accept Kirchhoffs conjecture .25 This gives a much less strained sense and syntax for the whole phrase, and the corruption, from the relatively unfamiliar Doric form to a commoner word, seems quite a likely one (influenced also perhaps by in 891). These somewhat mysterious gardens of Zeus recur in three classical passages. The first is a fragment of Sophocles (TrGF 4.320), from his Ion, which it is obviously attractive therefore to connect with our passage; but the context is quite unclear and the text is not certain either, so that this reference is less helpful than might at first appear. Nothing indicates that the phrase is applied to Delos, as it is in Euripides.26 There is also an allusion to a singular garden of Zeus in a mythical context in Platos Symposium (203b). Possibly the garden or gardens of Zeus were identified or at least linked with the garden of the Hesperides,27 but it seems likely that the concept was rather a fluid one, referring to a place which could be located everywhere and nowhere. The third text to refer to a garden of Zeus is precisely

The biography in Diod. Sic. 4.812 takes Aristaeus to Ceos, where he seems to found a dynasty, and to other unspecified islands. The similarities to Pindar in this account, as in Ap. Rhod. 2.50027, are probably due to a common source in the Eoiai, which the scholia to Pindar (on line 6a, quoting Hesiod fr. 215 MW) note as the origin of the story. Servius (on Verg. G. 1.14) attests the identification of Aristaeus with Apollo pastoralis, that is, , in the Eoiai (fr. 216 MW), which is common to all three extant authors. 24 Though Apollo might well be described in this context as the fruits of Zeus, the force of the dative, beside the accusative referring to Apollo, is rather obscure. 25 This suggestion appears to have been made independently by Badham, who mentions it in his school edition of the play (C. Badham, The Students First Greek Play: Euripidis Ion, with Notes for Beginners [London and Edinburgh, 18672], 91). I am indebted to Chris Collard for information and advice on textual issues here. 26 J. Fontenrose, The garden of Phoebus, AJPh 64 (1943), 2823 with some plausibility supposed that it represents a gnome, its a fortunate man who can harvest the gardens of Zeus, with no geographical reference. 27 See Barretts note on Eur. Hipp. 74251 (p. 303).
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Pythian 9, where the phrase is used at line 53 to refer to Libya ( , see below); the scholia explain that the whole country of Libya is sacred to Zeus Ammon, and this certainly fits further allusions in Pythian 4.28 Since Pindar is interested in the fertility of the land (, 7; , 58) the garden is appropriate, and although this is our earliest attested occurrence of the phrase, it seems very likely that he has taken an already existing idea and moulded it to suit his own purpose. It is then a tempting hypothesis that Euripides thought of the gardens of Zeus here because he already had Pindars poem in mind; indeed, we might perhaps argue that the Pindaric references elsewhere in the poem lend further support to the emendation. The application is of course rather different in Euripides, where, geographically speaking, the gardens would be located on Delos. But we need to ask why this might seem appropriate; the famous palm tree connected with the birth and mentioned in the previous line helps, but is hardly sufficient reason.29 If it is correct that the garden(s) were often identified with that of the Hesperides, there may be a link with divine marriage, or rather (to use the wider term), since apples grown apparently in this garden were presented by Earth to Hera as a wedding gift.30 This association would seem to be confirmed by the occurrence in Plato, where the garden of Zeus is the setting for the seduction of Poros by Penia, resulting in the birth of Eros. And of course this fits the Pindaric context as well: Chiron tells Apollo that he will take Cyrene across the sea to the excellent garden of Zeus (523). Taking these together, it is likely that even if the Euripidean listener or reader did not recall Pythian 9, he would understand that the gardens of Zeus formed a setting suitable for the evocation of a divine marriage and resultant birth. The role of Delos and the birth of Apollo in the monody is similar here to that of the story of Cyrene: both are idealized versions of the divine conception theme which act as a foil to Creusas tale of divine heartlessness and human suffering within the same story pattern.31 The question naturally arises whether, or to what extent, Euripides audience would have recognized the reworking of Pindaric motifs in the monody. It is surely not at all surprising that Euripides himself should have been familiar enough with the epinician corpus to quarry the detail of the narrative in one of Pindars odes. It has long been recognized that the second stasimon of Heracles is in effect a victory ode, and more recently it has been demonstrated that epinician imagery and motifs pervade much of that play and are important also in Electra.32 Further, Plutarch in one place intriguingly attributes an epinikion for Alcibiades to Euripides.33 And although by the time of the production of Ion, epinician poetry was no longer cutting-edge in Athens, and perhaps considerably less familiar than it had been fifty years previously, recent research has also shown that tragedy in general makes quite copious use of the typical motifs
Pyth. 4.1516, 56; for gardens, cf also of Cyrene at Pyth. 5.24. Hymn. Hom. Ap. 1618, 11718, where it is located in a . for is another emendation, but one beyond doubt. Euripides mentions palm tree and laurel together at Hec. 4589, adding an olive tree to these two at IT 1099102. 30 Pherecydes FGrHist 3 F 16, where it is called , , and in Latin versions Iunonis hortus. See Barrett (above, n. 27). 31 For a double choral allusion to birth of son and birth of father, one might also compare the parodos of Bacchae, where lines 8898 narrate the birth of Dionysus and 1209 allude to the birth of Zeus; but there the effect is one of assimilation through similarities of cult, rather than one of contrast. 32 See H. Parry, The second stasimon of Euripides Heracles (637700), AJPh 86 (1965), 363 72; Swift (n. 11), 11872. 33 TrGF 5 T91a, PMG 755, Plut. Alc. 11.3; in Dem. 1.2 he is more sceptical, but acknowledges that the usual view attributes the poem to Euripides. Cf. Ath. 1.3e.
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found in victory songs, usually in a context of irony or even subversion, and on occasion can allude to the tropes of specific authors.34 But Creusas monody does not occur at the kind of plot point (such as a return, celebration, or defeat of foes) which tends to act as a signal for epinician features, and the detection of influences would be complicated by the fact that in overall generic terms it stands much closer to hymnic forms.35 Could we none the less suppose that the allusions we have seen form part of Euripides strategy of communication with his audience? Drawing on parodies in Aristophanes, Laura Swift suggests that a substantial number of those in an Athenian theatre audience might have had some knowledge, not merely of generic elements, but of certain texts of Pindar and other epinician authors.36 Euripides play with Pythian 9 would strike a chord with a subset of this group consisting of those who were particularly well acquainted with this corpus; but we cannot, I think, assume that he expected his audience en masse to recognize allusions to a single poem written for an aristocratic athlete from Cyrene some sixty or so years previously. What seems certain is that the poem had resonances for Euripides himself, which he exploited to create a picture of Apollo and a mortal woman which was almost diametrically opposed to that of Pindar. To apprehend the distance evoked between the usual mythological picture and its presentation in the monody it is not necessary to recall Pythian 9, but the links with that particularly favourable presentation heighten the contrast and allow us to reflect on the issues involved. If Pindar lays emphasis on divinity and wants his audience to be struck by the wonder of a mortal sleeping with a god, Euripides starts from the human end and, as so often, strips the glamour from the mythical construct, inviting his audience to imagine what such an encounter might really have been like for the mortal partner. Creusa is a very ordinary, if proud, woman, equipped with stereotypical female faults, but above all traumatized and embittered by her experience of rape and a shameful pregnancy, and consumed by guilt and sorrow for the supposed death of her child. Of course, the monody is not the end of the story. The plays conclusion shows Creusa reconciled with Apollo ( , 1609), who has despite appearances taken thought for his son, looking after him at a distance in his sanctuary and ensuring that in the future he enjoys the kind of glorious destiny that is expected for the heroic sons of gods. But does this completely make up for everything that happened? After all, it remains true that Apollo raped a terrified young girl, then left her to face her pregnancy alone (even if, as Athena claims in 15956, he made sure that her labour was not discovered) and gave her no reassurance that her child had been saved, leaving her to assume for well

See D. Steiner, The immeasures of praise: the epinician celebration of Agamemnons return, Hermes 138 (2010), 2237; C. Carey, The victory ode in the theatre, in R. Rawles, P. Agcs and C. Carey (edd.), Receiving the Komos. BICS Suppl. 112 (London, 2012), 1736. However, the vast majority of such cases, even at a much earlier date than that of the Ion, relate to generalized motifs and not to specific poems. 35 We can certainly assume that an audience would have understood the monodys affinity with hymns and more specifically perhaps with paeans, lyric forms which naturally remained in familiar use. This ironic kinship has often been noted; see LaRue (n. 16); W.D. Furley, Hymns in Euripidean tragedy, ICS 24 (19992000), esp. 18990; Swift (n. 11), 94101. Creusa even refers to Apollo himself singing paeans (to his own praise?), while she explicitly states that she will proclaim the gods dispraise. 36 Swift (n. 11), 11214. See also the discussion of Pindar in late fifth-century Athens in Hornblower (n. 5), 568. But widely distributed familiarity with epinician texts would seem likely to be restricted to a relatively small range of poems and parts of poems. We need a context in which such knowledge could have been acquired, and symposiastic settings would probably yield only a small number of popular pieces.
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over a decade that the boy was dead. And if we are permitted to think forward to the likely immediate sequel, then, as A.S. Owen remarks, we are bound to feel sorry at what is in store for [Xuthus]; once again the divine plan will proceed regardless of human pain and disappointment.37 Euripides seldom supplies clear answers to his moral calculus, enabling sane critics to disagree on the interpretations of his plays. In Ion he uses many of his favourite devices argument, irony, reversals to force us to try to assess and reassess the characters and their actions, not least those of the absentee divinity. With Creusas monody he employs the more unusual technique of a lyric narrative which is directly related to the events of the play, a device which combines the first-person narrative common in drama with the wide range of colour and emotional nuance available to narrative in lyric metre and style. It is a remarkably affecting piece, which allows us to see the rape and its consequences close up, through Creusas eyes, and yet much of its effect depends on an implied contrast between an idealized picture and what is for Creusa reality. As I hope to have demonstrated, in formulating that contrast Euripides drew heavily on Pindars ninth Pythian. But in using the Pindaric ode as a point of reference, I do not mean that the earlier poems main myth is any the less an accomplished and intriguing narrative. On the contrary, it stands out in surviving Greek lyric as the most sustained and detailed treatment of the love of a god for a mortal woman, one which leaves its audience in awe of the heroine and of the encounter with divinity. Surely Euripides too, in drawing on it in this way, recognized its power and attractiveness as a picture of the divine-human relations of the mythical past. For we cannot say that either version is superior to the other; each is equally valid as an interpretation of a mythical theme. Who can say what sex with Apollo might really be like?38 St Hildas College, Oxford EMILY KEARNS emily.kearns@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk

Euripides: Ion (Oxford, 1939), xxx. I should like to thank Christopher Collard, Richard Rutherford and the anonymous reader for CQ for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this piece, though they must not, of course, be taken as endorsing everything in it.
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