Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rosaria Vignolo Munson is Associate Professor of Classics, Swarthmore College.

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Telling Wonders

The University of Michigan Press

Contents

Introduction.................................................1Chapter 1 Narrative and Metanarrative.......................20Chapter 2 Comparison........................................45Chapter 3 Interpretation and Evaluation.....................134Chapter 4 Thoma.............................................232Conclusion...................................................266Bibliography.................................................275General Index................................................293Index of Passages............................................309

Chapter One

The aim of this chapter is to identify different levels of narrative in Herodotus' text. I first define narrative in the strict sense, as opposed to metanarrative, and then distinguish self-referential from referential metanarrative. My discussion is especially indebted to three sets of works: narratological studies outside the field of classics, studies that apply narratological principles to Herodotus, and the work of other scholars who have devoted special attention to the formal aspects of Herodotus' narrative. The definitions I present here are largely my own and formulated strictly as a function of my overall interpretive task. I keep unfamiliar terms to a minimum and avoid making theoretical points for their own sake. Hurried readers more interested in substantive issues of interpretation than in the approach offered here have the option of skipping this chapter and referring back to it later if needed.

What Is Metanarrative?

The Histories contain a multiplicity of stories shaped and held together by discourse and transformed by it into a single story with a logical, if rambling and open-ended, plot. Transitions between stories may be determined by historical landmarks along a chronological sequence, by changes of time, or by changes of place and subject matter, but always on the basis of some factual connection. On the whole, the narrative proceeds chronologically, but the discourse interrupts the story sequence by constantly introducing explanations and expansions of this or that story element. In most cases, these formally subordinated narratives recount events belonging to a specific previous or later story time (flashbacks or follow-ups) or are descriptions in the present tense.

In my definition, "narrative" includes both the recounting of events in the past and description. Description, in whatever tense, displays objects, beings, situations, and actions "in their spatial, rather than temporal existence, their topological rather than chronological functioning, their simultaneity, rather than succession." In Herodotus' ethnographic descriptions, the present tense describes circumstances that may also obtain at the time reached by the historical narrative to which the description is attached. Whether it does or not, the ethnographic present is at any rate a real present, referring to the time of narration. Just as he instructs the audience about what happened in the past, so Herodotus teaches them about the contemporary world.

Whereas narrative represents the story as it is manipulated by the discourse, metanarrative speaks about the narrative and exists as a function of the discourse. Minimally narrated narrative consists of passages that approximate the concept of pure narrative, or objective mimesis, of external facts. Certain propositions, however, fall partially or entirely outside of the narrative and are equivalent to or contain titles, proems, repetitions, postscripts, or explanations that fulfill the role of glosses to the narrative itself. These metanarrative sentences especially appear as a sort of "padding" between adjacent or concentric narratives. At 7.57.1, for example, the minimally narrated narrative sentence "a mare gave birth to a hare" represents the core of a larger story sequence:

* s-i Xerxes' army crossed the Hellespont. s-ii A mare gave birth to a hare. s-iii They saw it. s-iv They proceeded on their way.

In Herodotus' discourse, however, event s-ii stands out by itself. What precedes and follows is predominantly metanarrative, containing event s-i in a subordinated clause and incorporating event s-iii:

1a. I When all [the Persian troops] had crossed, while they were moving on their way, a great prodigy [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] appeared to them of which Xerxes took no account, though it was easy to interpret [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]: n for [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] a mare gave birth to a hare. G This was easy to interpret because Xerxes was about to lead an army against Greece with the greatest pomp and magnificence but would come back to the same place running for his life.

It will become clear later why I identify statement I as an introduction and statement G as a concluding gloss rather than as a conclusion. What matters now is that both statements I and G are predominantly at a different level of discourse with respect to the central narrative sentence. Their main function is to "read," summarize, or explain. They perform, in other words, some of the operations a reader/listener might perform, and they do so from a perspective that, like that of the recipient, is not an integral part of the action narrated. This commentary, moreover, leads the narrator to postpone s-iv after he has attached to this story the narrative of a chronologically anterior omen, similar to the one just narrated. The result is a narrative preceded by its own summarizing introduction (7.57.2), which in the present context represents a gloss to the preceding narrative of the mare/hare omen. This is followed by a sentence (CC) that both concludes preceding narratives and narrates story function s-iv.

1b. = G I Also another prodigy [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII ... TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] occurred for him when he was still in Sardis: n for a mule gave birth to another mule with a double set of genitals, male and female, the male on top. CC Taking neither of these two into account, n Xerxes moved forward. (7.57.2-7.58.1).

A contrasting example to this set of metanarrative interferences is provided, for example, by a minimally narrated narrative reporting what Astyages learned about the meaning of his daughter's two successive dreams and how he reacted to the information (1.107-108.3). Astyages is the embedded focalizer of the events; whoever is telling this story (Herodotus or one of the sources mentioned at 1.95.1) is almost invisible. In the case of the hare giving birth to the mare, in contrast, while the agent in the narrative marches on, the narrator, Herodotus (and this time we are sure it is he), comes forward to communicate his perception. He and his audience come to share an understanding about the discrepancies between the clearness of divine communication ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) and men's failure to respond appropriately and between the initial magnificence of Xerxes' expedition and its anticipated outcome.

The stories of Astyages and Mandane, on the one hand, and that of the omens during Xerxes' march, on the other, illustrate different discourse possibilities in the Histories. Metanarrative introductions or conclusions may subdivide the narrative at any point; the resulting narrative sections may be theoretically as extensive as the entire work, as small as the smallest segment, or of any extent in between. Introductions (most frequently with continuative [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) give a preliminary summary that identifies a section of the following narrative as a unit. Conclusions summarize in some way what has been narrated, identifying it as a unit that has ended. Rather than being connected with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] to what precedes, most of these conclusions have anticipatory (or [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ... [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), to enhance the mechanical connection of the passage that has just ended with what follows.

Introductions and conclusions contribute to clarifying the subdivisions of a complex work, but their purely organizational function is secondary to my analysis. Especially interesting, however, is how their form, force, and interpretive potential indicate a more self-consciously didactic undertaking than that performed, for example, by Homeric poetry. Just as the histor is personally involved in investigating his subject in a way that the Muse-inspired bard is not, so he is also in close contact with his public. The way in which he speaks to them and guides their listening, however, is often ambiguous and reflects the complexity of his message.

Types of Introductions and Conclusions

I begin this discussion of metanarrative by treating introductory and concluding statements because in Herodotus, they are particularly numerous, discrete, and visible. They represent in themselves glosses to the text and thereby attract the presence of other glosses of various types, which can be found scattered along the narrative (e.g., in parenthetical statements or at the end of a sequence) or within it (in qualifiers). Introductions and conclusions are, in other words, privileged pockets of metanarrative communication. I will briefly survey their basic forms before discussing their general effect on the recipient of the narrative.

All introductions and conclusions contain a summary of the narrative they identify, but what I call a summary conclusion is just that-an autonomous plain restatement of the whole or of parts of the preceding account, with no other fixed characteristics. For example, the sentence

2. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [The Lydians, then, were definitively enslaved by the Persians] (1.94.7)

does not mention a new event in the narrative sequence but rather recaps the earlier account of Croesus' war against Cyrus by rephrasing its result, which has already been recorded (though in different words) along with all the other stages of the action. The particles anticipate a continuative in the introduction to the narrative that follows (1.95.1). The pluperfect tense of the summarizing verb marks the point at which the narrative had arrived before the intervening Lydian ethnography (1.92-94)-Where were we? Ah, yes: the Lydians had lost their freedom.

When an element of summarization on which the emphasis of the sentence lies is either replaced or accompanied by a backward-looking demonstrative-a form of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], or, less often, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]-the conclusion is no longer a plain summary. I call it a retrospective sentence. An example is

3. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. [and these, then, were killed in this way.] or [and this is how these were killed.] (5.21.1)

Here the demonstrative refers back to the unfolding of the action itself in the preceding narrative. "In this way" means "as it has been narrated."

Like retrospectives, the third and last type of conclusions in Herodotus consists of a nonautonomous, backward-looking sentence whose metanarrative status is formally identifiable. I call it the programmatic conclusion because it makes reference to the narrator's compositional plan by expressing the idea that the preceding narrative has been narrated and ends at this point. It may or may not include the appearance of the grammatical first person referring to the narrator. Examples follow.

4. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. [I am through [talking] about Rhodopis] (2.135.6)

5. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [And about offerings let this much be said] (1.92.4)

Among opening statements, programmatic introductions incorporate a reference to an act of narration that is about to occur. Herodotus' introduction to his description of Assyrian boats (1.194.1, discussed in the introduction) belongs to this type,

6. But the greatest wonder of all for me ... I am going to describe [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]].

The introductory counterpart of retrospective conclusions are prospective sentences, where the primary element of summarization is similarly represented or accompanied by a deictic that points to the narrative or narrative segment that the statement identifies as a unit. In a prospective sentence, the deictic is a forward-looking demonstrative implicitly signifying "as it will be narrated" (it is usually a form of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] or [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], but is also found). An example is

7. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. [Their customs are the following.] (1.196.1)

Finally, unlike prospective sentences and programmatic introductions, the plain summary introduction does not formally look forward to anything. It consists of a statement grammatically and logically autonomous from the report that follows. If taken out of context, it gives no indication of its introductory function. For example, the sentence

8. There are many other offerings of Croesus in Greece beside those mentioned (1.92.1)

happens to represent the heading for a subsequent discussion of specific items. However, the very similar sentence at 1.183.3 ("there are also many private offerings") does not. Plain summary introductions to narratives may be, in other words, formally identical to summary narratives. In fact, another way to analyze summary introductions, especially when the narrative segment they identify is short and connected with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], is to regard the summary introductions as being the narrative and take the following segment as an explanatory gloss that provides further details. What identifies a sentence as a summary introduction is the fact that it is more abstract and "processed" than what follows; for example, it may contain broad categorizations or other interpretive elements (see the word prodigy in statement I of passages 1a and 1b quoted earlier). In undecidable cases, the only principle that matters is that when the text contains more than one statement of the type "X happened" in reference to something that happens once in the story, the excess of discourse constitutes a metanarrative phenomenon.

The Rhetorical Value of Introductions and Conclusions

All introductory and concluding statements in the Histories either can be assigned to one of the three basic types I have described for each or consist of a mixture or series of these. They provide "reading" directions at least by virtue of the fact that they intervene at a certain point to summarize the narrative in a certain way. Statement 2 quoted earlier, "The Lydians, then, were definitively enslaved by the Persians," contains no additional glosses but fulfills a function of gloss by bringing out the meaning of the narrative according to the monarchical code. The verb [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "enslave" (used metaphorically) is a particularly strong term in this code. It has appeared only once so far in the Histories (1.27.4) but becomes more frequent in subsequent narratives of conquest, especially Persian. If we think in terms of "performance," the sentence seems to require a moment of silence as it underlines a milestone in the story and a major break in the narrative. Following upon the Lydian ethnography and at some distance from the preceding historical account, it concludes the entire Lydian narrative by reminding the audience that the actions of rulers affect communities. Croesus' defeat by the Persians has caused the "enslavement" of an ethnos whose contributions to culture and initial resourcefulness have just been described (1.94.1-7). If narrative always entails interpretation, a preliminary summary or a restatement of part of the narrative represents an additional opportunity to interpret, whether by attributing the narrated event to a general class, by privileging a single moment or feature, or by referring to one or more of the cultural codes according to which the narrative can be read.

Moreover, introductions and conclusions, including those that seem expendable from the point of view of what they actually say, scan and pause the narrative, endow it with a certain rhythm and tone, and perform a "phatic" function vis--vis the audience. Some retrospectives, for example, are equivalent to mere verbalized punctuation marks that leave the listener time to react. This is especially true when both the primary and the secondary elements of summarization are replaced with backward-looking demonstratives. At the end of a riveting narrative of how Alexander of Macedon had an entire Persian delegation killed over dinner and managed to cover up the murder, we find,

9. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. [these things, then, happened approximately in this way.] (5.22.2)

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Telling Wondersby Rosaria Vignolo Munson Copyright © 2001 by University of Michigan . Excerpted by permission.
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