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American Journal of Philology, Volume 130, Number 1 (Whole Number
517), Spring 2009, pp. 1-23 (Article)
3XEOLVKHGE\-RKQV+RSNLQV8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV
DOI: 10.1353/ajp.0.0038
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AMERICAN
JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY
METAL MAIDENS,
ACHILLES’ SHIELD, AND PANDORA:
THE BEGINNINGS OF “EKPHRASIS”
James A. Francis
u
Abstract. Ekphrasis has been a popular topic in recent years among scholars of
both classical and later literature. The latter have been particularly interested in
the modern definition of ekphrasis as a description of artwork and the development of global definitions and theories. Ancient ekphrasis, however, was much
broader in scope. By examining Hephaestus’ automaton handmaids and the shield
of Achilles in the Iliad, along with the Pandora stories in the works of Hesiod,
we can illustrate the nature and character of ancient ekphrasis in ways that call
into question modern theories and demonstrate the vibrancy and complexity of
even its earliest examples in Greek literature.
Ekphrasis has received a great deal of attention in recent
years as both classical scholars and those of later literature and literary
theory have probed the relationship between image and text. These
latter scholars have focused, not surprisingly, on what can be called the
modern definition of ekphrasis, i.e., the literary description of a work
of visual art.1 General theorizing about literature is, however, always a
tricky business, especially if the evidence considered is, from a Classicist’s
1
These include an important series in Yale French Studies 61: Beaujour 1980, Hamon
1980, and Sternberg 1980; Davidson 1983; Fowler 1991, offering a discussion in the context
of literary criticism and narratology; Heffernan 1991, including a succinct review of the
scholarship up to that point on 1–2; Krieger 1992; and Heffernan 1993, a highly literary
and theoretical treatment. An impressive bibliography can be found in Fowler 1991, 25,
n. 2, and Becker 2003, 13–14.
American Journal of Philology 130 (2009) 1–23 © 2009 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
2
james A. Francis
perspective, rather narrow in chronological scope. This is particularly true
in discussing ekphrasis.
In antiquity, ekphrasis was a rather uncommon and late-developing
term defined, not as a description of art, but as evocative description pure
and simple, “laying out the subject before the eyes” (sub oculos subiectio)
as Quintilian says, citing Cicero.2 Examples given are often from Homer
and relate to accounts of battle, while no definition found in surviving
rhetorical handbooks, with one exception, gives describing a work of art
as an example. It is almost certain that the description of art objects was
not considered a distinct genre in antiquity, and that ekphrasis itself was
not so much a genre as a technique or quality of both literary and oral
composition.3 It is, therefore, appropriate to return once again to the
earliest examples in ancient Greek texts to gain perspective on modern
theories. In this article, I will first examine the ancient definition of ekphra­
sis. I will then discuss examples of descriptions of artistic production from
the two earliest epic poets: Hephaestus’ automaton handmaids and the
2
Cic. De or. 3.202, cited in Quint. Inst. 9.2.40. A fine bibliography on ancient ekphrasis
is found in Fowler 1991, 25, n. 1. Of particular note regarding ancient ekphrasis: Maguire
1982, Zanker 1987, Bartsch 1989, Graf 1995, Webb 1999b, and the special issue of Ramus
31.1–2, 2002, entitled “The Verbal and the Visual: Cultures of Ekphrasis in Antiquity,” guestedited by Jas; Elsner. Any bibliographical note on ancient ekphrasis needs to include two
fundamental, older works: Lessing 1766 and Friedländer 1912. These works conceived of
ekphrasis as a genre and were concerned, befitting the culture of their time, with a more
aesthetic brand of literary criticism. Leach 1988, 3–24, gives a good background into earlier
scholarly issues, before the advent of the visuality studies of the past twenty years.
3
Zanker 1987, 39; Becker 1990, 139, n. 2; Elsner 1995, 24–26; Webb 1999b, 11–12;
Frank 2000, 18–20, with an excellent synopsis and references to the ancient sources. Zanker
2004, 6–7, holds that the fifth-century c.e. rhetor Nikolaus of Myra, Progymnasmata 11
(Kennedy 2003, 166–68; Spengel 1854, 3.491.15–493.19) is the first author to establish
descriptions of statues and pictures (ekphraseis agalmato\n) as a separate category of ekphrasis, but Nikolaus’ language is fairly ambiguous on this point. He can just as easily be
giving an illustrative example and not setting up a category. Neither Webb 1999b, 11, nor
Elsner 2002, 2, see a separate category formulated in the Progymnasmata, although Elsner
holds that description of works of art did evolve eventually to become a separate genre
in antiquity, though not defined in these elementary textbooks. In the preface to his own
Imagines, Philostratus the Younger refers to the Imagines written by his elder namesake
as an “ekphrasis of works of painting” (graphike\s ergo\n ekphrasis), but it seems clear that
ekphrasis here too means simply “vivid description” and requires the genitives in order to
refer specifically to painting. Becker 1992, 5–6, and n. 6, is of the same opinion and further
notes that there are few occurrences of the word ekphrasis in Greek before the third or
fourth centuries c.e. The verb ekphrazein occurs once in Demetrius, Eloc. 165, dating from
either the first century b.c.e. or c.e., meaning to decorate or adorn. See also Fowler 1991,
James 1991, and Webb 1999b.
Metal maidens, Achilles’ shield, and pandora
3
shield of Achilles in Homer’s Iliad, and the descriptions of Pandora in
Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days. Although ancient definitions
did not concern themselves with descriptions of art, these examples have
been chosen because they correspond to the modern definition and can
therefore more easily serve the purposes of comparison and criticism
between ancient and modern concepts of ekphrasis. Most important,
I will argue that the relationship between word and image in ancient
ekphrasis is, from its beginning, complex and interdependent, presenting
sophisticated reflection on the conception and process of both verbal and
visual representation.
In antiquity, ekphrasis, which is vivid description, is intimately
connected with enargeia, which is the quality of vividness.4 Enargeia is
discussed at length in Demetrius, De Elocutione 209–20, from either the
late Hellenistic or early Roman period, where it also includes completeness of detail. It is often paired with the quality of saphe\neia (clarity).5
Quintilian renders enargeia with the Latin evidentia or repraesentatio.
He distinguishes it from mere clarity (perspicuitas), stating that enargeia
thrusts itself upon our notice whereas clarity merely lets itself be seen
(Inst. 8.3.61). He also describes his own vivid visual experience in reading
the orations of Cicero:
An quisquam tam procul a concipiendis imaginibus rerum abest, ut non,
cum illa in Verrem legit: “Stetit soleatus praetor populi Romani cum pallio purpureo tunicaque talari muliercula nixus in litore,” non solum ipsos
intueri videatur et locum et habitum, sed quaedam etiam ex iis, quae dicta
non sunt sibi ipse adstruat? (8.3.64–65 quoting Cic., Verr. 5.86)6
4
Elsner 2002, 1, translates enargeia as “visibility”; the relationship between visuality and vivid description, visibility and vividness, shows how intimately these terms are
connected.
5
Demetrius treats clarity separately in Eloc. 191–202, which for him is largely a matter
of presentation and syntax. On the occurrence of ekphrasis and enargeia, with citations of
the sources, see Zanker 1981. See Manieri 1998, 123–49, on the rhetorical classification of
enargeia; 155–64, on enargeia in historiography; and 179–92, on the Homeric scholia. See
also Dubel 1997 and the valuable notes in Walker 1993, 253–54.
6
“Is anyone so incapable of forming mental pictures (a concipiendis imaginibus
abest) that he does not seem, when he reads these words in the Verrines: ‘There stood on
the shore a praetor of the Roman people, daintily slippered, wearing a cloak of purple, his
tunic trailing down to his ankles, draping himself over his strumpet,’ to actually look upon
those people, the place, their dress and even to picture other things in addition which were
not described? I myself certainly seem to see his face, his eyes, those filthy caresses, and the
silent loathing and frightened shame of those who were present.” All translations from the
Latin or Greek in this essay are my own unless otherwise specified.
4
james A. Francis
Note the power and dynamism of the visuality described here, as well
as Quintilian’s observation that brilliant enargeia allows the audience to
picture not only what is described but even what is not described.
The formal definitions of ekphrasis that have survived from antiquity
are nearly identical to one another. They are four in number, contained
in collections of rhetorical exercises for beginners called Progymnasmata
spanning a period from the first to fifth centuries c.e., authored by or
attributed to Aelius Theon, Hermogenes of Tarsus, Aphthonius of Antioch, and Nikolaus of Myra.7 The oldest definition from Theon in the first
century c.e. can serve for all four: “Ekphrasis is descriptive language,
bringing what is portrayed clearly before the sight. There is an ekphrasis
of persons and events and places and periods of time.”8 It is clearly a technique, but the mention of specific types of ekphrasis might be construed
as a delineation of genre. Certainly modern literary historians and critics
have taken it to refer to genre. For her part, Ruth Webb has argued that
ekphrasis was turned from a rhetorical technique into an ancient literary
genre by eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century scholarship, adding
another layer of complication onto that which transformed vivid description into description of art.9 At the same time, however, we should not
overplay the evidence in the Progymnasmata. These are textbook definitions, after all, useful in their own way but hardly the last word. Certainly,
Simon Goldhill (1996, 17–18; so also Bann 1989, 31–32) is emphatic on
the varieties of visual discourse in antiquity and their change over time
concomitant with changes in broader visual culture.
It is important to distinguish ancient ekphrasis from modern notions
to identify aspects of modern theories of ekphrasis which are inapplicable
to, and even contradicted by, the ancient uses of the term. For instance,
Stephen Bann (1989, 28), while enunciating his belief in the flexibility of
ancient ekphrasis, states: “Ekphrasis as a genre of writing is dependent
first of all on the risky assumption that the visual work of art can be
7
The standard edition of all the Progymnasmata remains Spengel 1854 (rpt. 1966);
English translation in Kennedy 2003. There is a recent Budé edition of Theon only, Patillon
and Bolognesi 1997. See Webb 1999b, 11, for history of publication. The Progymnasmata
are also discussed in Kennedy 1983, 54–73, and Becker 1995, 24–40.
8
῎Εκφρασίς ἐστι λόγος περιηγηματικὸς ἐναργῶς ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγων τὸ δηλούμενον. γίνεται
δὲ ἔκφρασις προσώπων τε καὶ πραγμάτων καὶ τόπων καὶ χρόνων, Theon, Progym. 7 (Patillon
and Bolognesi, 66–69; Kennedy, 45–47), 11 (Spengel, 118–20); trans. Kennedy 2003, 45.
See also Theon, Progym. 2. The other definitions are Hermogenes 10, Aphthonius 12, and
Nikolaus 11.
9
Webb 1999b, esp. 15–17, who also issues a salutary caveat on classical scholars slipping from the ancient to modern definitions unconsciously (8–9).
Metal maidens, Achilles’ shield, and pandora
5
translated into the terms of verbal discourse without remainder. In other
words, the text about painting or sculpture is assumed to have absolute
adequacy to the objects which it describes.” Bann’s purpose here is not
to discuss ekphrasis per se but to use it to exemplify a scholarly view
that mimetic realism is the hallmark of western art history. In doing so,
however, he presents a simplistic, mimetic concept of ekphrasis. First of
all, his statement confuses ancient and modern ekphrasis, especially in
speaking of a genre of art description. Second, he speaks of texts when
ancient writing about ekphrasis occurs specifically in the context of rhetoric. Granted, the art of rhetoric was the foundation of literary criticism
in antiquity, and the two arts shared a vast number of techniques, but
to make texts the focus of the discussion only further confuses the issue
with modern practice. Failure to recognize the fundamentally rhetorical
character of ancient ekphrasis, its oral delivery and aural reception, only
furthers misunderstanding.10 Finally, no such claim to “complete adequacy”
is ever made in any of the ancient sources, and one can readily see that
any such contention would be impossible.11 Indeed, Quintilian speaks
of the inadequacy of words in comparison with images (Inst. 11.3.67).
Conversely, vivid verbal description can also lead to seeing things not
even described (Inst. 8.3.64–65, quoted above), so that some words can
actually be “superadequate” to what they describe. As this article will
demonstrate, the relation of words to images was conceived as far more
complex than one of simple replication.
Other misconceptions arise from discussing ekphrasis from a too
narrowly focused literary perspective. Some modern critics speak of
ekphrasis as a point of stillness in the motion of a story being told.12 This
10
To a lesser degree, the same can also be said of ancient literature in general. In
the words of Harry Gamble 1995, 204: “No ancient text is now read as it was intended to
be unless it is also heard, that is, read aloud.”
11
A point made very well by Becker 2003, 4–5. Baxandall 1985, 1–5, points out that
even a realistic and detailed physical description of a painting might not allow the reader to
reconstruct it. Color sequences, spatial relations etc., all picked up instantly by the eye and
part of the very essence of the image, simply do not translate into words. I heartily concur
with Baxandall’s point that “ekphrasis is not a description of pictures but of thought about
having seen pictures.” Webb 1999a, 64, expresses the same view: “The aim of ekphrasis in
rhetoric has always been less to give a complete and accurate account of a particular object
than to convey the effect that the perception of that object worked upon the viewer”; so
also Webb 1999b, 11–12. Manieri 1998, 58–59, argues that it is not so much the detailed
description itself which captures the attention of the audience in poetry, but the intensity
of emotion such description evokes.
12
Krieger 1967 and 1987. With greater nuance and refinement, Heffernan 1991 and
Putnam 1995.
6
james A. Francis
may have a certain validity from the point of view of narratology, but
it cannot help but convey the impression that ekphrasis is flat, static, a
contemplative (and marginal?) pause in the “real” task of narrative. Far
from a calm, contemplative pause, ancient ekphrasis, as we shall see, is
filled with movement on several levels, sometimes reinforcing, sometimes
subverting the narrative, often calling into question the very processes
of sight, language, and thought.
Modern scholars also distinguish between descriptions of objects
which exist in physical reality and those which are purely imaginary. The
description of these latter is termed “notional” ekphrasis. The distinction
may well be helpful in modern literature, but ancient rhetorical theory,
which subsumed literary theory, did not make a distinction between real
and fictional subject matter in this regard.13 Indeed, what is regarded as
the first example of the ekphrasis of an artistic object in Western literature,
the shield of Achilles in Homer’s Iliad, is a description of an object that
did not and could not physically exist.14 Quintilian even saw particular
value in fictional description: “We will obtain vivid clarity if we remain
very close to reality, so that we may invent fictitious elements, which
did not occur, if they usually occur in the situation we are describing.”15
Notional ekphrasis therefore offers a distinction of little use in discussing ancient ekphrasis.
A glance at a few other apposite scholarly observations on ekphra­
sis will conclude this preliminary discussion. As Murray Krieger has
noted, ekphrasis is, in one sense, an epigram on a work of art without
the accompanying object—indeed in antiquity usually without any object
except the one it verbally creates.16 Ekphrasis therefore possesses a char13
Leach 1988, 10. The term “notional ekphrasis” was coined by John Hollander
1988, 209.
14
Taplin 1980, 4, categorically states that no such shield has ever or can ever exist,
though some more romantically inspired scholars have, in the past, endeavored to draw the
shield from Homer’s description; see Edwards 1991, 204–6, for illustrations of these. It is
interesting to note that earlier scholars also found fault with Homer’s description because
it was “unrealistic”; see Becker 1990, 140, nn. 5 and 6.
15
Inst. 8.3.70: “Consequemur autem, ut manifesta sint, si fuerint verisimilia; et licebit
etiam falso adfingere quidquid fieri solet.” So also 9.2.41: “Nec solum quae facta sint aut
fiant sed etiam quae futura sint aut futura fuerint imaginamur. Mire tractat hoc Cicero pro
Milone, quae facturus fuerit Clodius si praeturam invasisset”; “Nor may we describe only
those things which have happened or are happening, but also in addition those things which
could happen or would happen. Cicero did this wonderfully in the Pro Milone, when he
described what Clodius would have done had he obtained the praetorship.”
16
Krieger 1967, 16. Some ekphrastic epigrams were, however, probably placed with
the statues or other objects they described. On the relationship between ekphrasis and
Metal maidens, Achilles’ shield, and pandora
7
acteristic which is also fundamental to the nature of an image. Both are
about absence, at least in part, and function as symbola, in the original
definition of that word.17 The image refers back to the absent model just
as ekphrasis refers back to its absent image. But just as with the image,
ekphrasis makes the absent present; it conveys both presence and absence
at the same time. Similarly, ekphrasis also communicates through both
word and image. It appropriates visual material into words and, at the
same time, the image it (re)presents appropriates the text and its audience by absorbing them, turning readers into viewers (Becker 1995, 152).
Ancient ekphrasis is thus a dynamic interface between the verbal and
the visual.18
Ekphrasis, in the narrower, modern sense of a verbal description
of a visual artifact, stands at the very beginning of classical literature in
epic poetry.19 In many ways, visuality is woven into the epic genre (Bakker 1993, 15):
epigram, see the insightful article by Chinn 2005; also Elsner 2002, 10; Gordon 1979, 10;
Gross 1992, 139–40; Heffernan 1991, 304; Kreiger 1992, 15–16. On the development of
Hellenistic literary epigram, see Gutzwiller 1998.
17
A symbolon was originally a disk or similar token used in establishing a contract.
The disk was broken in half and one half given to each contracting party in order to prove
their identity. It therefore stands, and stands in, for something or someone absent: e.g.,
money lent, a distant friend, a pledge not as yet fulfilled.
18
Since ancient ekphrasis seeks to compound word and image and conflate reader
and viewer, I would take issue with approaches that see a primarily agonistic relationship
between these modes of discourse in ekphrasis, e.g., Krieger 1992, esp. 1–2, and 7. Becker
2003 offers a superb refutation of the agonistic view, with a convenient bibliography of
works representing these theories on 1–2, nn. 2, 3, and 5; on a broader scale, see Bal 1991,
25–59. Heffernan 1993, 1, 33–34, 46–61, also sees ekphrasis as a duel, one between male
and female gazes, with the voice of masculine speech striving to control the feminine image
that is both alluring and threatening. This is, of course, classic gender analysis and quite
valid and illuminating, but such analysis has come to be wary of overly rigid dichotomies.
The “gaze” is gendered, but not monolithic or stereotypical; neither does power always
migrate to the male. Fredrick 2002 offers a good summary of the body, sexuality, and the
gaze in classical scholarship, with the accompanying issues and controversies. See Martin
1996, 3–4, on more nuanced views. The assignment of strict gender identities to words and
images is, in my view, reminiscent of Lessing’s dichotomy between visual and literary art
in Laokoön, i.e., dichotomous, inflexible, and totalizing; see also Fowler 1991, 30. Barton
2002, 224–25, notes that the gaze of women in Rome could be as violating and penetrating
as that of men; the invasive eye could shame men regardless of the gender of the viewer.
In general, see Richlin 1991, Gleason 1995, Stewart 1997, Fredrick 2002, and their respective bibliographies.
19
For a good overview of issues in visuality in Greek culture, see the essays in
Goldhill and Osborne 1994.
8
james A. Francis
Epic narrative in many cultures is very different from what is commonly
considered to be the essence of narrative—text type, the reference to past
events and the presentation of information that moves narrative time forward and thus can be called “sequential.” Rather, epic narrative is typically
presented as, in narratological terms, the description of things seen, with
the narrator (performer) posing as eyewitness.20
Ancient Greek epic can be described as a genre of evocative description,
true to its origins as oral storytelling where performance demanded a level
of recreation or reenactment beyond simple description.21 The world of
epic is vast indeed, and Homer and Homeric scholarship particularly so.
Here let us confine ourselves to exploring different examples of artistic
ekphrasis from the two earliest epic poets, Homer and Hesiod.
The “Shield of Achilles” in Iliad 18.468–608 has been reckoned as
the first example of the ekphrasis of art in western literature.22 Both the
shield description itself and its immediate context provide important material for studying the description of works of art. The scene in the poem
begins after Patroclus loses Achilles’ armor in his fatal duel with Hector.
Thetis, Achilles’ goddess mother, approaches Hephaestus for new armor
made by the divine craftsman himself (18.368). Upon entering Hephaestus’
workshop, Thetis sees him putting handles on a set of twenty automated
tripods on wheels, mechanical servants able to move back and forth to the
Olympian feasts (373–79). These automatons give the audience a foretaste
of an even more dramatic set of the god’s creations. As Hephaestus puts
away his work and leaves his forge to speak with Thetis, he is assisted by
20
On visuality in Homer generally, see Snodgrass 1998 with the review by Morris 1998,
also Prier 1989 and Rakoczy 1996, which present two very different analyses. Prier 1989,
25–118, also offers a detailed discussion of words relating to seeing in Homer, acknowledging the preliminary work of Snell 1924; see also Prévot 1935 and Prier 1987.
21
“Epic narrators in performance, too, are interpreters, not of visual evidence in their
physical here and now, but of visual evidence provided by their memory,” Bakker 1993, 17;
see also Gombrich 1957 and Arnheim 1969.
22
The paradox, of course, is that while scenes in Homer are often cited by the Progymnasmata and other rhetorical treatises as examples of ekphrasis in antiquity, the shield
is not. It becomes an example only with the narrowing of the definition of ekphrasis in the
renaissance and modern period. This is not to say that the shield of Achilles was not highly
regarded in antiquity; it certainly was—producing such imitations as the pseudo-Hesiodic
“Shield of Heracles” and, most famously, Virgil’s description of the shield of Aeneas. The
point is that such scenes are not specifically termed ekphraseis in antiquity. Much of the
groundwork for recent scholarship on the shield was laid by Reinhardt 1961, 401–11, and
Marg 1971; more recently, see Edwards 1991, 200–232; Stanley 1993, 3–26; Becker 1995;
Scully 2001.
Metal maidens, Achilles’ shield, and pandora
9
attendants made of gold who are like living young women in appearance
(zo\ e\isi nee\nisin eioikuiai). Unlike the tripods, however, the poet says these
automatons possess intelligence (noos), sense (phrenes), voice (aude\),
vigor (sthenos), and have been taught skills (erga) by the gods (417–20).
The passage is curious. The only roughly similar instance in Homer is
the gold and silver dogs Hephaestus made to guard the palace of king
Alcinous in Odyssey 7.91, but these are not described as animate. Note
a significant difference between the tripods first mentioned and these
metallic maids. The tripods seem to be no more than mechanical devices,
self-propelled carts designed simply to move about on certain occasions.
The maids, however, have the qualities of living beings and actually look
alive. I suggest the reason for this difference is precisely because they
are in the form of living beings. The maids are animate statues and not
merely mechanical devices. Because they are in human form, they can
possess human intelligence and the power of speech; they can learn and
act with a degree of independence.23 We will see this again in the ultimate
living image fashioned by the gods: Pandora.
At the request of Thetis, Hephaestus sets about making Achilles’
new armor. Although he does make a corselet, helmet, and greaves, these
are tersely mentioned in only a few lines at the very end of Book 18. The
principal focus of the poet’s descriptive energy is on the shield, and the
context of the description is not a static appreciation of the completed
work but rather the dynamic process of the god fabricating it. The emphasis
is on the making, yet it is not even so much the making of the shield per se
as it is the god’s creation of the images ornamenting it.24 First mentioned
is Hephaestus’ depiction of the earth, sea, and heavenly bodies (483–89).
Then follow the three dominant scenes: a city at peace (490–508), a city
at war (509–40), and a bucolic harvest scene (541–605). Lastly, two lines
specify that the river Ocean is depicted around the outermost rim of the
shield (606–7). Starting with the city at peace, the description becomes
immediately and intensely detailed, presenting the motivations of individuals and the sequential action of the stories that would be difficult if
not impossible to convey by solely visual means.25 In the city at peace,
23
Gordon 1979, 8, states these were seen “neither as inert matter nor as humans nor
animals; they required a special classification.”
24
See esp. Taplin 1980. Heffernan 1993, 12–14, holds that this vivid, detailed, and
“realistic” description is, in fact, not a description of a shield at all, but only the scenes
upon it. Elsner 2002, 5, discusses this emphasis on making and how it is a reflection of the
poet’s own work here; the shield is an image of the poem itself.
25
On this scene, see the interesting and accessible essay in Nagy 2003, 72–87.
10
james A. Francis
we know that two men involved in a dispute are arguing over restitution for someone one of them accidentally killed and that the aggrieved
party refuses compensation. We know that they take turns laying their
cases out before a council of elders and that two talents lying before the
elders are to go to the one among them who gives the best counsel. In
the city at war, an army marches out from the city, takes up its ambush
and attacks. Yet the action is not described as a series of vignettes but as
a continuous moving narrative, as if the shield were running some sort
of movie in animated metal. Hephaestus even depicts the divinities Ares,
Athena, Hate, Confusion, and Death as present in the scene.
The description in these major scenes is not limited to the visual.
In the city at peace, the poet describes the song of a marriage procession
passing by in the scene, the bystanders speaking up in the manslaughter dispute, the speakers taking turns, and in the harvest scene, singing,
whistling, and the music of the lyre. In one striking image in the harvest
sequence, the absence of sound is described: the king stands behind his
workers in silence—a condition paradoxically easy to describe in words
but difficult to do in mute images. The cast-metal images on the shield
recapitulate the metallic maidens. The images are presented as vigorous
and moving; they can sense, reason, and argue. Like the maidens, they
are endowed with speech. They know the crafts of peace and war. In the
ambush scene, the soldiers “battle like living mortals” (ὡμίλευν δ’ ὥς τε
ζωοὶ βροτοὶ ἠδ’ ἐμάχοντο, 18.539) similar to the way the “golden maidens
scuttered about their master like living women” (ῥώοντο ἄνακτι / χρύσειαι,
ζωῇσι νεήνισιν εἰοικυῖαι, 18.417–18).26 The use of the simile here underscores
both the lifelikeness of these images and their nature as representations.
Both the figures themselves and their poetic descriptions make them both
real and representational at the same time.27
Heffernan has suggested that the poet—or perhaps more precisely
a poet—at some point in the long evolution of the Homeric epics is actually exulting here in the then newborn powers of writing and inviting the
audience to measure the power of verbal description against the visual.28
All quotations from the Iliad are taken from the Teubner edition, West 2000.
In the words of Gordon 1979, 10, the metaphors of living applied to images “at once
assert and deny that statues and painted figures are alive. ‘Living’ is broken down into its
denotations: breath, sight, feelings, movement, skin-sheen, facial expression. So far as one
or two of these denotations may be taken as ‘sufficient’ evidence of ‘life,’ the images live.
But the whole inventory is never present.” See also Stewart 2003, 35–41.
28
Heffernan 1993, 9. The problem is, of course, exactly when this power of writing
would be “newborn” and the assumption that this power could only belong to literacy. It
26
27
Metal maidens, Achilles’ shield, and pandora
11
A case can certainly be made that the poet emphasizes those abilities
which verbal representation possesses and which visual representation
lacks, describing sound, human motivation, sequential time—all with
articulated precision. But we should not be too hasty or superficial in
our judgment here. Could this verbal description have achieved any of
this precision without referencing some visual artifact? If words here
are seen to master the visual image, the paradox is no less present that,
without the image, the words would lose their meaning and purpose.
Indeed, since this is a “notional” ekphrasis, to use the modern term, the
poet must “create” the artifact with these images in the first place—but
then again, all of this exists only in words. The relationship between word
and image here may or may not be agonistic, but it is profoundly complex
and interdependent. There is a sophisticated reflection on verbal and
visual representation here, not simple one-upmanship of one over the
other. This is also consistent with the theme of appearance and reality
that runs throughout the Iliad.29
The sophistication and intricacy of the interplay between verbal and
visual representation in ancient ekphrasis is obvious from its very beginning. There is no elementary stage of “mere” description.30 The focus on
is, however, not writing but rather words themselves that have this power. Heffernan appears not to take account of the oral tradition that lies behind the written Homeric poems
we now have. There can be competition between visual art and poetry without written
language. This oversight tends to be common among non-classical literary scholars in dealing with a number of works of ancient literature, since it is, frankly, difficult for people in
our era to conceive of a “literature” that was not written. A similar problem occurs when
scholars and theorists forget that what we would recognize as literary theory and criticism
was in antiquity primarily directed toward rhetoric, i.e., oral not written composition and
presentation.
29
Certain characters in the poem especially manifest the conflict between appearance
and reality, as well as a complex ambivalence regarding the verbal and visual. The most
vivid is the ugly Thersites, whose appearance denies him any claim to status and, therefore,
credibility, but who nevertheless speaks the “ugly truth” to the kingly appearing but hollow
Agamemnon (Il. 2.210–75). His true words go unrecognized and are driven out, overruled
by appearance. At the same time, however, Odysseus is the master of words, but his smooth
talk masks half-truths and deception. If a major theme in the poem is that appearances
deceive, it is obvious that words, too, cannot be entirely trusted.
30
Krieger 1992, 18, speaks of “the ekphrastic principle” learning to do without simple
ekphrasis, i.e., the mimesis of an object in physical reality, in order “to explore more freely
the illusory powers of language.” Curiously, Krieger is speaking of Homer here, which
leaves one wondering what “simpler,” and presumably earlier, literature he might be
referring to. This notion of simple, mimetic ekphrasis hearkens back to Friedländer 1912
and his concept of echte Beschreibung. Bann 1989, 28, advances the same overly simplistic
12
james A. Francis
making in this scene provides an important point of interface between the
verbal and the visual. Homer’s description is embedded in Hephaestus’
action of laying out the metals and placing the sculpted scenes, while at
the same time Hephaestus’ work of creating images in the visual realm
parallels Homer’s in the verbal realm. This adds further depth to one
aspect of the poem that has been long recognized: the scenes on the
shield are emblematic of the story of the Iliad itself, so that the shield is
a multilayered image of the poem, created by and embedded within the
poem.31 Andrew Becker has demonstrated that the shield episode serves
as a paradigm for the audience’s response to the Iliad as a whole. The
actions of the figures on the shield, their motives, reactions, and feelings so
clearly articulated, serve as a guide for the audience’s response. Complex
imagery is paralleled by an equally complex narratology (see Becker 1995,
44–153). James Heffernan speaks of the “representational friction” in this
passage (1993, 19–20; see also Steiner 2001, 21–22), a dynamic Andrew
Becker (2003, 6) describes more constructively in terms of engagement
and detachment. At several points, Homer is careful to specify the metal
Hephaestus uses to construct the various figures, even calling attention
concept of ekphrasis. See Becker 2003, 7–8, and n. 21, for an effective critique. Neither am
I certain that “illusory,” with its connotations of deception, is the right word to use in this
regard. Given the performative character of epic, indeed of all ancient poetry, it seems
more likely that the poet very much wants his audience to be conscious of and admire his
skillful use of language. Heffernan 1993, 22, offers an eloquent and more refined analysis:
“Yet Homer never forgets that he is representing representation itself: that he is describing
both the act of sculpting and a work of sculpture as well as all the things it represents. He
starts each narrative by referring to the making and placing of the scenes he narrates; he
concludes his most dramatic narratives on a note of charged suspension that evokes the
stasis of sculpture; and he fully exploits the representational friction between the sculptor’s
medium—the various metals of the shield—and its referents. He thus bears continual witness to the Daedalian power, complexity, and verisimilitude of visual art even as he aspires
to rival that art in language that both magnifies and represents it.”
31
On the correspondences between the details of the shield and the main narrative
of the Iliad, see Taplin 1980. Another example of mirroring the poem and poet occurs in
3.125–45, where Helen is weaving a magnificent robe decorated with scenes from the war
raging outside her walls. The goddess Iris appears to her and summons her to the walls
to witness the pause that has just dramatically descended on the hostilities. As the battle
stops, so her work on the image of the battle stops. She comes out to see once again with
her physical eyes the people which she is depicting through her mind’s eye in her weaving.
See Kennedy 1986, 5–8, and Putnam 1995, 428. Snodgrass 1998, 161–62, argues that in his
description, Homer “looks” at the shield in the same way his audience would examine a
work of art, “grasping overall composition, deciphering gesture and movement, inferring
passage of time,” in a word, “making up stories” about what he sees.
Metal maidens, Achilles’ shield, and pandora
13
to their crafted realism: e.g., the ground looked like earth, even though
it was made of gold (18.549–50); golden grapes are darkened to appear
realistic, though the vine-poles are silver (561–63); gold and tin oxen pour
out of a farmyard to graze near a stream, shedding blood when they are
attacked by lions (573–86). Although the god’s skill makes the figures so
realistic they (seem to?) move and speak, and although the poet aims at
vivid realism, the audience is deliberately reminded that these are but
images, representations in metal.32 In the next example, however, we shall
examine an image that actually becomes alive: Hesiod’s Pandora.
Though not often singled out as an example of ekphrasis of art, the
creation of “woman” in the poems of Hesiod, Theogony 570–615 and
Works and Days 60–109, where she is given the name Pandora, echoes
themes and language seen in Homer.33 Like Achilles’ shield, Pandora is
made by Hephaestus, but from clay instead of his usual medium, metal
(Theog. 571; WD 60–61, 70). The god, in effect, makes an archaic terracotta statue in a form “like that of a modest maiden” (παρθένῳ αἰδοίῃ
ἴκελον, Theog. 572; ἐίσκειν / παρθενικῆς καλὸν εἶδος, WD 63; παρθένῳ αἰδοίῃ
ἴκελον, WD 71).34 In Works and Days, the gods then bring the statue to
life specifically by giving it powers that Homer says were given to Heph­
aestus’ metallic maids: voice (aude\) and vigor or strength (sthenos, WD
61–62, 77–79; cf. Il. 18.417–20). Just as the maids “were taught their skills
by the gods” (ἀθανάτων δὲ θεῶν ἄπο ἔργα ἴσασιν, Il. 18.420), so “Athena
teaches her skills” to Pandora (Ἀθήνην / ἔργα διδασκῆσαι, WD 63–64).
Goddesses bedeck her with glittering raiment, jewels, and flowers.35 Works
and Days then goes on to detail at length the gods’ gifts of Pandora’s
interior character: craftiness, deceit, shamelessness, and irresistible allure.
In Theogony, the description stops at the woman’s external appearance,
but the lifelike quality of Pandora is instead conveyed through the
description of Pandora’s crown:
τῇ δ’ ἔνι δαίδαλα πολλὰ τετεύχατο, θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι,
κνώδαλ’, ὅσ’ ἤπειρος δεινὰ τρέφει ἠδὲ θάλασσα·
32
For another example of plant life in embossed metal depicted as living, see Gutzwiller 1986.
33
Pucci 1977, 82–126, discusses the creation of Pandora in terms of sculpture and,
similar to Achilles’ shield, sees this making as a metaphor for poetry. Also on Pandora, see
Saintillan 1996 and Vernant 1996.
34
All quotations of Hesiod are taken from the OCT edition, Solmsen, et al. 1990.
35
Steiner 2001, 116, points out that Pandora’s adornment by the gods with shimmering raiment and jewels resembles the ritual clothing of statues of the gods.
14
james A. Francis
τῶν ὅ γε πόλλ’ ἐνέθηκε—χάρις δ’ ἐπὶ πᾶσιν ἄητο—
θαυμάσια, ζώοισιν ἐοικότα φωνήεσσιν.
(Theog. 581–84)36
It, too, is made by Hephaestus, and like Achilles’ shield, the figures
ornamenting it are like living creatures with, significantly, voices (ζώοισιν
ἐοικότα φωνήεσσιν). Like Hephaestus’ maids and the figures on Achilles’
shield, Pandora is a skillfully created object possessed of movement,
intelligence, skill, and speech.
Pandora is thus portrayed as a living image, but is she a woman
described as a statue or a statue described as a woman? Though out of
habit, nearly everyone refers to Pandora as “the first woman”; Christopher
Faraone rightly notes that Hesiod never her calls her the first woman—or
even a woman, period. He merely states that her shape, vigor, and voice
are like that of a mortal woman and that all women descend from her
(Theog. 590).37 The use of similes here (“like” in various words in Greek)
parallels Homer’s descriptions of the metallic maids and the figures on the
shield (Theog. 572, 584; WD 62–63, 71; cf. Il. 18.417–18, 539). The similes
draw attention simultaneously to the vividness and vigor of the representation and to the fact that it is representation, not the “real” thing. Why
use this language unless, in some sense, Pandora is not a “real” woman?
In Theogony, this creature is the first manufactured entity. All creation
prior to her arises spontaneously or from procreation—except for men,
who simply appear without a clear origin—while Pandora is quite literally built. She is a constructed thing, a plasma, not a product of nature.38
Like the maids, she seems to be a very special form of statue, one that
is invested with and serves as the prototype for all women and the evils
that come through them. She is a divinely fabricated living statue.39
36
“On it were worked many marvelously detailed figures, wonders to behold, / Terrifying monsters, such as the earth and sea spawn; / He crafted many of these—and breathed
enchantment upon them all— / Most amazingly, as if they were living beings with voices.”
37
Faraone 1992, 101–2. Hesiod never quite describes Pandora as human; neither is
she the wife of a mortal man. It is often forgotten that she is given to the Titan Epimetheus,
the brother of Prometheus, not to a mortal husband. The overall impression is that she
serves as some kind of archetype for the human women that will come after. Similarities between the account of Pandora’s creation and Hesiod’s description of the birth of
Aphrodite (Theog. 190–205) and Eros (Theog. 120–22) lend further credence to this view.
In Hesiod, Aphrodite is also a sort of prototypical woman, born with smiles, deceits, and
irresistible allure (Theog. 201–6).
38
Steiner 2001, 78, states that from Pandora onward, “statues have the power to bring
into existence something quite different from what existed before.” Pucci 1977, 89–90, considers her a copy or imitation of the various archetypal gifts the gods bestow upon her.
39
This is also the conclusion of Faraone 1992, 101–2, and Becker 1993, 287–88. On living statues, in addition to the works mentioned in the notes above, see Poulsen 1945; Dodds
Metal maidens, Achilles’ shield, and pandora
15
Other elements underscore the complexity of these passages. Pandora is most definitely not what she appears to be. The gods give her the
form of a modest girl but fill her with guile and shamelessness. There
is dissonance between appearance and reality reminiscent of the Iliad.
In one sense, Hesiod appears to exalt verbal representation, since his
words can describe Pandora’s true nature and belie her deceptive visual
appeal. But if this is true, then Hesiod’s words are also exposed as weak
and unavailing, for Pandora’s—and hence all women’s—attractions are
insuperable. Aphrodite herself instilled cruel longing within Pandora (WD
65), and no amount of words can prevent men from desiring women.
Moreover, Pandora’s appeal is purely visual. When she is led out in
public for the first time, both gods and men are awestruck as soon as
they lay eyes on her. To emphasize the visual dynamic, Hesiod equates
seeing Pandora with springing Zeus’ trap: θαῦμα δ’ ἔχ’ ἀθανάτους τε θεοὺς
θνητούς τ’ ἀνθρώπους, / ὡς εἶδον δόλον αἰπύν, ἀμήχανον ἀνθρώποισιν· (“The
immortal gods and mortal men were struck with amazement (thauma)
at this marvel, as soon as they saw this utter snare which men are helpless against,” Theog. 588–89). Though given speech, she does not speak
in either of Hesiod’s poems. Given that speech is elsewhere a particular
quality of the living, that Pandora has this quality but does not use it
makes her even more of a contradiction and raises further questions as
to what kind of being she is.
Andrew Becker sees this passage also as an example of audience
response similar to that he saw in the shield of Achilles. The Pandora
episode in Theogony is filled with descriptions of viewers’ reactions, which
in turn model the reactions of the poem’s audience.40 Pandora’s clothing
and crown are both “a wonder to behold” (thauma idesthai) just as she
herself fills gods and men with wonder (thauma) at her appearance.41
1951, 293, with notes; Ziolkowski 1977; Frischer 1982, 96–118; Brillante 1988; Freedberg
1989, 283–316; Gross 1992; and Spivey 1995. Another example of living images, or at least
their vital connection to their living archetypes, is binding and/or burying effigies to avert
evil; see Faraone 1991 and 1992, 74–96, 133–40. On rituals renewing the divine power of
images, or perhaps even infusing divine life into them, see Steiner 2001, 106–20.
40
See Becker 1993, 282–90. He concludes that this offers an early instance of the
rivalry between verbal and visual representation. Since Pandora is most powerful in her
effects on men, then poetry, the medium which can describe these effects—i.e., the response
viewers have to her—is superior to art, which can merely describe her deceitful appearance.
This is an acute observation and true enough, though again I would emphasize that this
is still being mediated by vision; the reactions are those of a visual experience. Hesiod is
constructing a more complex and subtle relationship between the verbal and visual here.
41
Prier 1989, 94–97, discusses how the expression thauma idesthai serves as an intermediary between the describer, the described, and the audience.
16
james A. Francis
The figures on her crown are similarly wondrous things (thaumasia)
and endowed with charis, a word meaning grace or charm (rendered as
“enchantment” in note 36 above), difficult to translate here but indicative
of a judgment based on something more than apparent beauty.42 Pandora
herself is made in the form of a modest (aidoie\) maiden. Her clothes and
jewels are expertly or cleverly made (daidala). None of the adjectives or
expressions is visual; they are instead descriptive of the results of viewing. They express emotions, reactions, or judgments of physical or moral
quality, the results of cognitive processes. Pandora is described not only
by her visual appearance but also by the reactions of persons in the poem
on seeing her. Her “audience” in the poem mirrors the audience of those
hearing or reading the poem, and the reactions of persons in the poem
engage, frame, and model the reactions of those who hear or read it. The
description of Pandora presents not so much a visible object but instead
the effects of seeing that object (see above, note 11).
These two examples of ekphrasis of art from the earliest Greek
literature demonstrate that the description of works of art was complex
from the start. There appears to be no stage in which literature contented
itself with any sort of simple ekphrasis, the mere mimetic description of
a visual artifact. The very idea of representing a visual work of art with
artistic words entailed a level of sophistication which had already begun
to think abstractly about these modes of representation. Even the attribution of lifelikeness, which could simply be a compliment to the quality
of naturalistic art, in Homer’s hands becomes a dialectic on the nature
of representation and reality, as the poem simultaneously insists on the
objective reality and constructed plasticity of the images it describes.43 In
Hesiod, lifelikeness raises disturbing questions about the nature of the
woman-creature the gods fabricated. Underlying this is an even more
fundamental issue concerning the life of images. As Hephaestus’ metallic
maids demonstrate, there is no clear line between an image of life and life
itself. What keeps an image in human form, endowed with power, ability,
and speech, from being alive? At the same time, the images portrayed in
these passages are not only looked at, they also look back. Seeing and
being seen are active processes here. The scenes in Homer reach out to
the audience of listeners/readers/viewers and engage them emotionally
and viscerally. Pandora exerts her irresistible power simply by being seen.
42
Both Solmsen, et al. 1990, 29, and Becker 1993, 285, n. 18, prefer reading deina
instead of polla in 18.582, creating another response-oriented description. The figures of
the land and sea beasts “terrify” the viewer.
43
Becker 2003, 6, describes this dynamic in terms of engagement and detachment.
Metal maidens, Achilles’ shield, and pandora
17
The viewing that takes place in these two passages is dialogic, which further allows the poem itself to enter into rapport with the audience and
to model reactions to events in the narrative to them.44
Also apparent at the dawn of Greek literature is an awareness of the
strengths and weaknesses of words both in themselves and vis-à-vis images.
By the nature of his description, Homer invites comparison between the
visual image of the shield and the words he uses to describe it, which
communicate knowledge that the images cannot. Yet both images and
words are the poet’s creations, so that the result is a complex mirroring
not only of the visual and verbal representation of the shield but also of
the making of the shield and the making of the poem itself. In Hesiod,
the powerful reality of the vision of Pandora is actually the counterpart
to the words which describe her character; rather than compete with
one another, both the visual and verbal are necessary to describe her
completely. Artists and poets both create images, and one form of imagemaking can, or perhaps inherently does, reflect the other. Visuality and
narratology are two sides of the same coin.
These earliest examples set the stage for the development of ekphra­
sis in the rest of Greco-Roman antiquity. The living quality of images,
the fine line between reality and representation, and the interdependent
relationship between word and image are powerfully reprised in, for
example, Ovid’s tales of Narcissus and Pygmalion; Horace, Carmina 4.8;
44
The force and power of this process is akin to prevailing ancient theories of physical, ocular sight. Ancient theories of vision fell into one of two categories: either that of
objects emitting something that physically entered the eye, or of the eye emitting something that reached out and “touched” objects. “The Greeks did not understand vision as
the perception of reflected light. . . . One common element in these theories is that there
is direct contact between the viewer and the object. . . . A second feature of Greek visual
theories is that what is seen enters into the mind itself because its images continue to recur
in the ‘mind’s eye’ even after the thing has been seen. Thus, what we see has the power
to enter into our soul and to affect our behavior,” Stansbury-O’Donnell 2006, 64; see also
61–67 for a succinct survey of Greek theories of vision. In general, see van Hoorn 1972,
Lindberg 1976, Gérard 1988, Rakoczy 1996, and Park 1997. The physical effects of seeing
can be quite dramatic. In Heliodorus, Ethiopica 10.14.7, the queen of Ethiopia looked upon
a painting of Andromeda during an embrace with the king and bore a daughter who was
not only white but also looked just like the Andromeda in the painting. Bettini 1999, 199,
notes: “Empedocles maintained that children acquire their form from the woman’s imagination (phantasia) at the moment of conception, and it often happens that when women
are seized by a passion for images or for statues, they give birth to children who resemble
those images or statues.” Vision, whether mental or ocular, is invasive and tactile, its impact
concussive. What is seen, once it is touched by, taken into, or has invaded the mind, can
have a life (and perhaps a will) of its own. This is all the more the case when the object is
a representational image.
18
james A. Francis
and Philostratus’ Imagines. At the same time, the active, reciprocal nature
of viewing seen in these passages, their vibrant strategies for engaging
their audience, and complex reflections and refractions of verbal and visual
representation belie a number of characterizations of ekphrasis put forth
by scholars of later literature, as well as a number of universalizing theories of ekphrasis. From the beginning, ancient ekphrasis explored ways of
combining word and image, alternative to the agonistic relationship that
has been the focus of much recent scholarship. Insisting that ekphra­sis
communicate both verbally and visually, ancient writers present a complexity that resists tidy rationalization and theorizing. Homer’s shield and
Hesiod’s Pandora offer a salutary lesson in generalizing too readily about
ekphrasis without taking its first practitioners into account.
University of Kentucky
e-mail: [email protected]
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