Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/115

93 LITERATURE OP ANCIENT GREECE. 93 are named in Hesiod. This seems to prove incontes'ably that the Theogony has heen interpolated by rhapsodists who were familiar with the Homeric poems as well as with those of Hesiod. It has heen already stated that the Theogony originally terminated with the races of the Olympian gods, that is, at v. 962 ; the part which follows being only added in order to make a transition to another and longer poem, which the rhapsodists appended as a kind of continuation to the Theogony. For it seems manifest that a composer of genealogical legends of this kind would not be likely to celebrate the goddesses who, "joined in love with mortal men, had borne godlike children" (which is the subject of the last part in the extant version), if he had not also intended to sing of the gods who with mortal women had begotten mighty heroes (a far more frequent event in Greek mythology). The god Dionysus, and Hercules, received among the gods (both of whom sprang from an alliance of this kind), are indeed mentioned in a former part of the poem*. But there remain many other heroes, whose genealogy is not traced, of far greater importance than Medeius, Phocus, ./Eneas, and many other sons of goddesses. Moreover, the extant concluding verses of the Theogony furnish a complete proof that a poem of this description was annexed to it ; inasmuch as the women whom the Muses are in these last verses called on to celebrate f can be no other than the mortal beauties to whom the gods came down from heaven. As to the nature of this lost poem of Hesiod something will be said hereafter. Hitherto we have said nothing upon that part of the Theogony which has furnished so intricate a problem to the higher department of criti- cism, viz., the procemium, as it is oidy after having taken a general view of the whole poem that we can hope to succeed in ascertaining the original form of this part. It can scarcely be questioned that this prooemium, with its disproportionate length (v. 1 — 115), its intolerable repetition of the same or very similar thoughts, and the undeniable in- coherences of several passages, could not be the original introduction to the Theogony ; it appears, indeed, to be a collection of all that the Boeotian bards had produced in praise of the Muses. It is not, how- ever, necessary, in order to explain how this confused mass was formed, to have recourse to complicated hypotheses ; or to suppose that this long prooemium was designedly formed of several shorter ones. It appears, indeed, that a much simpler explanation may be found,, if we proceed upon some statements preserved in ancient authors!. The genuine Nov Ti yuvatKuv (fi/Xov ul'iffaTi ii^ui'TUai Nov/rui, &C. I Especially the statement in Plutarch (torn. ii. p. 743, C. ed. Franoof.) that the account of the hirth of the Muses from HeskxFs poems (viz., v. 36 — 67 in our proem) w.is sung as a separate hymn ; and the statement of Aristophanes, the Alex- andrine grammarian (in the scholia to v. 68), that the ascent of the Muses to Olympus followed their dances on Helicon.
 * V. 940, seq,