OUSEION - Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative ...

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 193
the contradictions of the third level.
In the rest of the book. except for the coda. Calame analyzes Pindar's
Pythians 4. 5. and 9 and the relevant parts of Herodotus. Book 4. Callimachus'
Hymn to Apollo. and Apollonius' Argonautica. Book 4. The
canonical schema. however. is only partially and intermittently applied.
so that the introduction and the demonstration do not fit together properly.
The schema seems clearest with respect to Pythian 9 (67-74. 78-79).
Here the manipulation phase starts. as it should. from a "lack." Apollo's
love for the nymph Cyrene. which prompts Chiron as Sender to advise
Apollo as Subject. In the performance and competence phases. Apollo
transports Cyrene to Libya and marries her. In the sanction phase. their
son Aristaeus is born. Alexidemus and Telesicrates. two "homologous
figures." go through similar phases: Iolaus. though only glanced at by
Pindar. does so too. A matrimonial isotopy is in play (no commentator
has ever missed this). and also a cultural one. the transition from savagery-hunting
on Mount Pelion-to husbandry. And yet. says Calame.
this is not at all the contrast between nature and culture which "the
most recent interpreters. clearly influenced by Levi-Strauss. have affirmed
.... We should mistrust the binary logic too often applied by anthropologists
without nuance" (74). I cannot find the objection spelled
out. Perhaps it is that cereal agriculture would represent a further advance.
With the founding proper. as related in the other odes and authors.
it is easy to see that a lack often leads to manipulation. and that persons
like Euphemus or Battus go through four phases. and that Apollo is repeatedly
the Sender. But Pythian 4 and Herodotus pose obvious complications
for any narrative analysis. Pindar in addressing Arcesilaus
adopts an unusual form and manner. and Herodotus strings several
stories together. For Calame. however. each literary work is an "enunciation."
a "discourse production." displaying its own structures
throughout. and there can be no question of simply distinguishing between
what Pindar borrowed and what he added. or between different
sources in Herodotus. Before ever applying the canonical schema. Calame
explains-under such headings as "performative self-reference
and temporal location" and "narrative and figurative temporality"-how
"a 'textual time' is constructed through ... symbolic process"
(37-43). In Pythian 4 there are "five distinct temporal planes" (43-48).
Structures multiply vertiginously.
The isotopies are mentioned most. Some are called "animal." "vegetal."
"mineral." or "musical." "political." "rural/urban." Some are like
old-fashioned symbolism. and are embroidered with far-fetched com-