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VVKTrcpaE yaitav
TEpl acAt[Evov AAd'rptov-6S
The assurance and calm with which the poem offers this and other
examples of disquieting imagery, particularly in the "proem," has
stimulated a search for sources and prototypes, whether in mystery
religion or in Hellenic myth, legend, and poetry.
It should be said at once, of course, that the power and brilliance
are Parmenides' own and not borrowed from anyone. To assume, as
this paper does, that the tradition from which Parmenides drew was
the main poetic tradition of Homer and Hesiod is not to imply that
hexameter poetry by itself somehow accounts for Parmenides. Rather,
the assumption is that the tradition was there, pervasively and ineluct-
ably, in the cultural atmosphere, that Parmenides used its motifs and
imagery as freely and naturally as he breathed, counting them as allies
in his poetic communication with Hellas, and that he criticized this
cultural donnee whenever he saw fit, which was not seldom, by the
very manner in which he made use of what he liked of it.
The prototypal aspect of Homer in Parmenides, especially of the
Odyssey, has been discussed by E. H. Havelock.' Odysseus, the ex-
perienced and knowing traveler protected by the goddess Athena,
reaches an ultimate place where day and night meet and where he is
told by Circe, goddess and daughter of the sun, what road to take
home. In another ultimate place, Thrinacia, he finds the immortal
cattle of Helios, the sun, guarded by the sun's daughters. Telemachus,
Odysseus' son, makes a chariot journey in search of his father. And, in
the Iliad, Achilles' famous chariot horses are immortal and wise. So,
in Parmenides' poem, the narrator is a knowing man (E$W' qWs) on a
journey to an ultimate place where day and night meet and where he
is told what road to take. His chariot is drawn by wise, immortal
horses. His guides are goddesses, daughters of the sun. The Homeric
parallels and language, Professor Havelock remarked, suggest that
Movroawv"EAtKWVtapWV "ELEW
"xWI'EO
EAJLKwXOPoZS aVTO
EVETOLvqj
aKpo-ra7-
EVOEVa7TOpvvLEVa,KEKUAV[ULEVatL
?Ept7ToAAr,
EVVVXtat UrTELXOV orrav
7TEPLKAAEO(o EFcrLt
(Theogony I, 7, 9-1o)
VVKTOO8 E
PEEVV7T]q OLK a ELV
ET7J-KEV VEq!)UV(XSKEKaAVJ LEa KVaXVE-7T.
TwVIpoEO OVP(VOV
EEEL EVpVV
ET-7L KEq!)aA-7rE KC7Tat,
I,r7TETOLO OaKaLUtaruTXEPEUC~LV
&OV?OV
arTE/fEW/S,oOt vtv TE Kat 7flLLEp7
&AArAas
r7TpoUEEL*trov, tEYCavOVOSd
atJELOtEVECCL OZLt
The journeying narrator of Parmenides' poem reaches the gates of
night and day. They open revealing a huge "chasm." He passes
within and is greeted by the goddess (B.I.II-I8):
I
EVOavTudAaiL
VVKTOe TE
KCf o/ul, iLTo ELrtL KEAEVOuOV
Kat uraS 15r7dPOvpov aLL'S E'EL KCl Acvoswol080's.
CVTCCL
o8alptst, LEyaAott
rrVTAiv-rate OVpETPrOLS.,
TW as Kq TrroAVTowoSL EXEL KAhgat's~osfloUo'S.
SEJL, u vt raiKO TAo
nTjv8a aAaKOde.or
7TaCdrleEa S. V IcflaAavwTrov O7tootuv
-"
arTTEpEW W trvAEwv
oELE Tal SE OvpE-rTpwv
EIT,,paOEW,
7TE'Ucav, W,
XaoI aXaVs TrroL7tuav afro.
avarrracEvaI.L..
The obvious difference, of course, in these two accounts is that
Parmenides asserts that his gates are not in Tartarus, but in the ether
(ateO'ptat),just as the chasm beyond his gates contains not Titans,
night and death, but the gracious goddess. The "loathsome sources
XEpaLVVLKr7)vr..TE .
with Parmenides'descriptionof the binding of "becoming and destruc-
tion" by Dike (and Ananke)B.8.I3-I4, 26-27, 30-31, 37-38:
TO7 EWVEKEV OVTE yEVEOctOL
o5T oWvuOat
'VJKE ZLq
XKaAcOaoua
7TJ1W8
-O ye
E0'TEL E'7TE&I7aV
o aOV tVrni o e
TeEVL . . .
Mop"'
Like the Heliades and the goddess, Dike is at best only a very distant
relationto the well-definedanthropomorphicfiguresof Hesiod and the
myth in general. In fact, popularreligion, if not religion altogether,is
gone, and we are not surprised. But Parmenides'treatment has done
more than simply ignore religion. By carefullyevoking Hesiod's effort
at systematicpresentationof the myth, while at the same time draining
it of individuality and twisting its images of dark to light, he has
doubly condemnedit.
A new vision of man accompaniesthis new vision of the universe.
He is a traveleron a lonelyroad- -rvS' 6ev, Iqyap r"&vOp W6iTWV EKTO7
rrd-rov He is not taken in by the 0os-rroAV'7TEtpov,the established
wisdom uv.
of society. His road is straightahead,not rraAlv-rporTos like that
of other people. But, lonely though it is, this road will lead him to all
knowledgeXPEw SE
6 rrdv-ra rrvE'crOat.For him, Dike, the law of nature,s
will yield and open her gates. He will pass within and "judge by reason
the strife-encompassed proof spoken" (B.7.5-6) by the goddess (Kp cvat
h
Aoy pEnV"rua).
TOAre&St
nhp"
The AEYXOV/
of the "OEVo of
"unshaken heart
apprehension well-rounded truth"
is only for the extraordinary man, the hero. The new, rational Theo-
gony, emptied of myth, presents itself as comprehensible only through
the heroic spirit of the epic.9
NOTES
I. E. H. Havelock, "Parmenides and Odysseus," HSCP 63 (I958) 133-43.
2. W. Jaeger, Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford 1947) 93.
3. Theogony 736-57; Parmenides B.I.II.
4. ". . . the goddess is thus an exact counterpart of the Muses," Jaeger, 94;
O. Gigon, Ursprung der Griechischen Philosophie (Basel 1945) 246-47.
5. B.I.zz-z8 ETTEtlY
oYrt E KaK7)7P0ofTEt/EVEEUOaL may recall Iliad 1.418
(Thetis to Achilles) 7WUE KaKV toUOpa
aU? 7TEKOVEv LEyadpOLUL.
6. M. Untersteiner, Parmenide (Florence 1958) lxvii.
7. Untersteiner, pp. lxxii-lxxiii.
8. Untersteiner, pp. lxxv-lxxviii.
9. The language of Parmenides is fundamentally epic. In fact, the first
notable departure does not come until the end of the "proem," when 5~da
and lrraUr suddenly thrust the fifth century and its preoccupations into the
Homeric-Hesiodic context, as the goddess explains the double character of
knowledge (B.I.30): 7'5 flpor&v 6S'as, raiZsorK Vt 7rldUs &0~XA s. Later, the follow-
ing nouns characteristic of post-epic language occur: Kp&6iUS, Kptuts, yEVEOLSE
pJt,
yvva, , 'yKos, rdrros.One verb and one adverb are notably non-
0os, KAEYXOs,
epic: vopldw and Eflflahus. Parmenides' nearly twenty negative adjectives
include several which occur rarely or seldom in epic: &y7v7-roS,&KVIT7OST, &Vdr7TOS,
rcravUros, uavAos.The numerous compound adjectives include three character-
istic of the fifth century: rE''Upos, Ezay4)s. Six others are of interest
flpptpO6,
because of their rarity: &Xav', IKpavos, uaorrA7j,
VvK707La s, 7r7ArTpoTros,
7TEptOTO-r.sx