传记荷马

诗人的传记

虽然“荷马”是一个希腊名字，在说埃奥尔语的地区得到证实，但对他没有任何确切的了解;然而，丰富的传统形成了，或者被保留了下来，意在提供他的出生地和背景的细节。其中许多故事纯属虚构:讽刺作家卢西恩在他的神话般的《真实历史》中，把他描绘成一个名叫提格拉涅斯的巴比伦人，只是在被希腊人作为“人质”(荷马)时才冠以荷马的名字。当哈德良皇帝问德尔菲的神谕谁是荷马时，皮提亚宣布他是伊萨坎，来自《奥德赛》的爱彼卡斯特和忒勒马科斯的儿子。这些故事层出不穷，并被纳入了从亚历山大时期开始编纂的《荷马传》。最常见的说法是，荷马出生在小亚细亚的爱奥尼亚地区、士麦拿或希俄斯岛，死于基克拉迪的伊俄斯岛。传说中似乎暗示了他与士麦那的联系，他的原名是“美勒西涅斯”(“生于流经士麦那的一条河”)和女神克瑞忒斯。来自诗歌的内部证据为这种联系提供了一些支持:熟悉小亚细亚沿海地区的地形，在地名和细节上突出，以及对当地风景的比喻:Caystros河口的草地鸟(伊利亚特2.459ff.)，伊卡里亚海的风暴(伊利亚特2.144ff.)和风的爱(伊利亚特2.394ff: 4.422ff: 9.5)，或者梅奥尼亚或卡里亚的女人用猩红染象牙(伊利亚特4.142)。与希俄斯的联系至少可以追溯到阿莫罗斯的塞蒙尼德斯，他引用了《伊利亚特》(6.146)中“希俄斯之人”的一句名言。某种与荷马同名的吟游诗人行会，被称为荷马之子(Homeridae，荷马之子)或荷马之父(Homeristae，荷马之子)，似乎曾在那里存在过，从不同的角度追溯了荷马名字的想象祖先的后裔，或者吹嘘他们的特殊功能，如狂想曲或专门背诵荷马诗歌的“门外汉”。 The poet's name is homophonous with "homêros", meaning, generally, "hostage" (or "surety"), long understood as "he who accompanies; he who is forced to follow", or, in some dialects, "blind". The assonance itself generated many tales relating the person to the functions of a hostage or of a blind man. In regard to the latter, traditions holding that he was blind may have arisen from the meaning of the word both in Ionic, where the verbal form "hómêreuô" has the specialized meaning of "guide the blind", and in the Aeolian dialect of Cyme, where homêros was synonymous with standard Greek tuphlós, meaning 'blind'. The characterization of Homer as a blind bard goes back to some verses in the Delian Hymn to Apollo, the third of the Homeric Hymns, verses later cited to support this notion by Thucydides. The Cumean historian Ephorus held the same view, and the idea gained support in antiquity on the strength of a false etymology deriving his name from ho mê horôn (? µ? ????: "he who does not see"). Critics have long taken a passage in the Odyssey describing a blind bard, Demodocus, in the court of the Phaeacian king, who recounts stories of Troy to the shipwrecked Odysseus, as self-referential. Many scholars take the name of the poet to be indicative of a generic function. Gregory Nagy takes it to mean "he who fits (the Song) together". "Hómêréô", another related verb, besides signifying "meet", can mean "(sing) in accord/tune". Some argue that "Homer" may have meant "he who puts the voice in tune" with dancing. Marcello Durante links "Homeros" to an epithet of Zeus as "god of the assemblies" and argues that behind the name lies the echo of an archaic word for "reunion", similar to the later Panegyris, denoting a formal assembly of competing minstrels. The Ancient Lives depict Homer as a wandering minstrel, much like Thamyris or Hesiod, who walked as far as Chalkis to sing at the funeral games of Amphidamas. We are given the image of a "blind, begging singer who hangs around with little people: shoemakers, fisherman, potters, sailors, elderly men in the gathering places of harbour towns". The poems themselves give evidence of singers at the courts of the nobility. Scholars are divided as to which category, if any, the court singer or the wandering minstrel, the historic "Homer" belonged.