Saturday, November 02, 2024
Theognis 257-260
Theognis 257-260 (tr. Douglas E. Gerber):
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I am a fine, prize–winning horse, but I carry a man who is utterly base, and this causes me the greatest pain. Often I was on the point of breaking the bit, throwing my bad rider, and running off.T. Hudson-Williams, The Elegies of Theognis and Other Elegies Included in the Theognidean Sylloge (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1910), pp. 193-194:
ἵππος ἐγὼ καλὴ καὶ ἀεθλίη, ἀλλὰ κάκιστον
ἄνδρα φέρω, καί μοι τοῦτ᾿ ἀνιηρότατον.
πολλάκι δὴ ᾿μέλλησα διαρρήξασα χαλινὸν
φεύγειν ὠσαμένη τὸν κακὸν ἡνίοχον. 260
It is, however, just possible that our elegy had a political meaning; then ἵππος would signify a state ruled by а κακός (oг κακοί), cf. 681.J.M. Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, Vol. I (1931; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961 = Loeb Classical Library, 258), p. 259, n. 5:
the horse may be a city ruled by a bad manDorothea Wender, tr. Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days. Theognis: Elegies (London: Penguin Books, ©1973), p. 160, n. 11:
An enigma, or riddle poem, of which Theognis wrote several. One possible solution is that the horse and rider are a city and her tyrant.I'm not aware of any detailed discussion of this interpretation. It doesn't seem too far-fetched to me. Most scholars think that the lines refer to a woman (e.g. Friedrich Nietzsche, De Theognide Megarensi § 11: amica nobili genere) or to an actual horse.
