Our hymn to Apollo has a second part, and
this part of Apollo's story is centered on the Temple at Delphi.
Delphi, a very famous place in antiquity has a long and deep connection with
Apollo. You'll remember the previous lecture, we
were trying to make sense out of this rupture in the middle of our Homeric hymn
to Apollo. On the one hand we've got Apollo connected
with the Delos. We talk about his birth and coming out of Leto, and the drama that
surrounded that. And then, all of a sudden, we move stories
and we're centered on, moving in to the stories that, that centers on a Delphi.
The suggestion that was made in the previous lectures that we what we might,
Might have here is a single hymnist's attempt to bring two very different
traditions together into one hymn and that way please both sides of a powerful
audience. Those at Delos that like to think that
Apollo is especially connected with them. And those at Delphi they think Apollo is
especially connected with them. This author gives them both pride of place
and cuts out some of the parts that maybe would have made the transition a little
bit abrupt. For example you don't get a second birth
story in the Epiphian side of this tale. That's something that happened at Delos.
Instead we got Apollo appearing. He just sort of shows up.
And themes carry over from the earlier part of the hymn that we saw into this
second piece of the hymn. Apollo is frightening.
He's a very powerful god, And the other gods are a little concerned
about it. His power causes people to shake.
His grandeur is so grand that it causes some anxiety.
The geographical lists show up again. Apollo's kind of making his way around the
Mediterranean as he moves, the Greek Coast and farther pieces of the Mediterranean as
he moves around trying to find a spot for him now to.
Build a temple. He needs to find his place on Earth, and
those place names, just as we saw in the earlier hymn, are connected with specific
features of Apollo's cultic worship. There are temple sites at these places,
there are other, pieces of Apollo's background that map onto these
geographical locations. Each of them has a connection with Apollo,
and again, the hymnist is in a kind of encyclopedic attempt to get all of the
traditions around Apollo, listing them together, so that, it's his way of being
able to join together lots of different Apollo traditions into a single hymnic
form. Apollo, as he emerges and causes some
fright among the people, declares his purview once again. We have a prophecy,
song, medicine, these things show up and come out of Apollo, as he declares what
his purview is going to be. Prophecy here is to declare the will of
Zeus, Which means that Apollo's being careful to
say; yeah, I can see in to the future but don't mistake that for saying that I'm the
one that controls all things. Instead he cedes to Zeus, his father, to
say that, yeah, Zeus is the one who's will controls the future, I'm the one that can
see it. There's Apollo being careful to.
Yeah, sure, he wants to say that he's a, authoritative and powerful, but he wants
to make sure also that, he, everyone realizes he understands his role is
subordinate to Zeus. Our main story is Apollo trying to find a
place to settle. He is looking around, trying to find a
place where he can build a temple. That place turns out to be Delphi.
He establishes rights and gets himself set up.
So, once again, a sense of a god in search of something, a god in search of a place,
trying to find a spot where he belong. That's definitely true in our Homeric in
to the meter. She needs to get re-acquainted and rebuilt
built back into her Homeric her Olympian society after this trauma that happend
with her and Persephone. Well, Apollo now is just trying to find
his spot, where does he belong on Earth and what kind of rights are going to be
established in his honor. And Apollo.
Oh, I think a ritual dimension of this story is extremely pronounced.
What else do we have going on here in this story, aside from Apollo trying to find a
spot where he can be worshiped? This seems to be a really important part
of what gods want. They, they like it when you and I pay
attention to them. We're a critical piece of their identity.
Trying to find that spot and establish it in Apollo's hymn, really comes through as
a critical part of him finding his own place in the universe is finding a place
for. All of us human beings to worship him.
We hear a story of Telphusa, who is a personified spring.
She shows up and says, well hello, Apollo. And he says, greetings,
And he's about to build a temple there. She says, you know, maybe you don't want.
To build a temple here when the beautiful plains that are all around me, she's
personified here, are going to be trampled and people are going to haul horses and
the chariots and everything are going to become,
Washing across this plain. When they do they'll be admiring me and
you'll be jealous, you'll want them to admire you, so you should go somewhere
else. Apollo listens to this and decides that
having all these horses moving around in this wide open plain is not going to work
out. So what does he do, he goes up into the
folds of Parnassus. Beautiful photograph of the layout here.
You'll see that there's the scene, you can see way out far on the edge.
We're actually looking from the perspective of Delphi itself here, looking
down the folds of Parnassus and across the plain.
The wide open spaces down there, yeah, there might have been the horses and
chariots, but go up the hill and you don't have the room for people to be making
gestures with their herds and horses, instead you get into Dephi's territory.
And there people's movement is a little bit more hampered, constricted and in fact
there is a focus, a literal geographical focus on one spot.
And that is this wonderful temple shrine at Delphi.
In looking back from the temple site, down the fields we see this beautiful thing set
up there. Those of you who've some of you will have
already visited this spot. It's quite moving.
There, who knows, there's some of you taking the class that are living down the
road from it. If you are, go take some snapshots and
share them with us. It's a quite amazing sight.
Highly recommended that you should go. Take a look at it.
This side of Delphi Apollo finds it. This is going to be his special spot on
Earth. He's ready, sets up his temple, he's going
to get himself established. He's finally found a place to be.
In our hymn we have a description of Apollo getting going on the process.
Let's just focus on that. Apollo spoke and laid out the foundations
wide, solid, and very long. And a stone threshold was placed by the
sons Erginus, Trophonius, and Agamedes, friends of the deathless god, the endless
human nations raised a temple of carved stone to be sung about forever.
A lovely spring flowed near, where the noble son of Zeus killed a huge snake by
his stout bow, there. A savage, bloated monster who brought
outrage continually on the country's people and slender-footed sheep, a gory
curse. We hear about this monster don't we, and
Apollo's slaying of this nasty huge snake that's hanging around his spring right
nearby is. His conquest in order to secure s-, a safe
zone for those around Delphi to worship him.
Now, you'll recognize that as we start talking about this snake, all of a sudden
we get, you know. Dozens and dozens of lines talking about
some other monster. You'll recall from the, Hesiod's tale of
Zeus' conquest, that as Zeus is trying to order the whole universe, there's this
monster Typheus that comes up at the very end, after Zeus has conquered everyone
else, Earth produces Typheus. And then Typheus comes and attacks Zeus.
After Zeus slays Typheus, well then he's, established.
That's the last challenge at his authority.
In this case, we hear a lot of digression on this monster here, called Typheon, but
it's clearly the same one. The story varies in some of its details
but mostly it reflects the same kind of a thing, talking about Zeus' conquest of it.
And the relationship between that and our snake is not absolutely obvious unless you
re-read it very closely, what the author's saying is that this monster, that Zeus
slew, famous Typhaon, well known throughout the universe as the, as the
last impediment to Zeus' authority whom he slew.
Very tough customer. This one has a relationship with the
snake. The snake actually served as the foster
mother to this creature and raised Typhaon up.
And so the connection, I think that the author's trying to say is that sure, Zeus
slew Typheus, Typhaon, But our god Apollo, slew the mother of
Typhaon to give that extra kind of monsterly credentials.
Monsterness, of this snake is credentialized very powerfully by saying,
it was such a monster it could serve, as foster mother to Typheus, who really,
among the most famous, of these nasty creatures, that, that sprouted up, in the
early generations of creation. Now the comparison here I think suggests
very subtly that Apollo's power in the universe is very strong.
So strong in fact that some might have made a claim at some point along the way
that Apollo was actually superior to Zeus. Don't find that in a literary tradition.
You don't find mythical references that talk about that.
We don't have a battle between Apollo and Zeus.
Zeus is top dog, and always has been top dog in the mythic stories.
Apollo's careful to talk about himself in a subordinate position to Zeus, but it's
stories like this and the story that talks about all the gods being terrified of
Apollo and how powerful he is, all the places that are scared to bring him in
that I think suggest very subtly that those partisans that backed Apollo as
their local divinity and god might well have had designs on trying to think about
him as being top dog in the universe. Then from there we get a story that
builds. We've got the conquering of Pytho That
gets linked to a couple of or to an important ruler who helps us understand
who, what Apollo's all about. The list of epithets that show up in this
story each of them are attachments to Apollo's name. Pythian Apollo.
Telephousios is another nick name that Apollo gets.
Del, Apollo of Delphi, Delphinios. These are terms that get linked with
Apollo in the tradition of rites that surround him and epithets attached to his
name. Our story is giving us a reason for
thinking how it is they got attached to him.
They're telling a story behind these traditional names by which we know Apollo.
Pytho is the name that the beast gets because it comes from a Greek verb meaning
to rot. After Apollo killed it, the beast rotted
there on the plain. And so the term Pythian gets attached to
Apollo. Telephus seems to recall Telphusa.
The water nimph that we saw down on the plains and talked Apollo out of settling
his temple there. That helps us understand occultic epithet
of Apollo Telephousios. And also Delphi.
I mean just a story of, of, of, of the name there gets pulled out in our story.
The final closing bit Apollo's trying to search for.
Someone who can, Tend his rights for him.
He needs a human population to surround his temple and execute his rights on his
behalf. And it just so happens that some Cretan
sailors come washing up on shore. And Ap-,
Apollo thinks well sure, let's go see what we can make here and shows up to them in
the form of a dolphin not, again not a, Very subtly, laid out in the hymn, hymn.
You have to read very closely. But, yes indeed,
Talks about Apollo flopping up dolphin like on to the ship.
When he does they're scared, they're not sure what's happening, and some huge
monstrous beast out of the, out of the sea.
And then he starts to take over their ship and guide them around.
Lots of places are visited that had to do with Apollos cult.
And eventually Apollo says you know I'm here, I'm the god and you're going to be
my people. I'm going to bring you in, and you can now tend my, tend my rights for me
in the sight of Delphi. So that term, Delphi comes from this
Delphinian backround in the story the Greek term.
Delphis actually just goes ahead, is, is a direct, their direct way of saying
dolphin. So it's connected in the story to Apollo
the Dolphin. Now, Apollo has got himself settled.
He's got his home at last, at Delphi, a beautiful temple that he's built there, a
lovely place that's situated just right, that he has figured out how to make it
just work, just right. He's got people who can put his rights
together for him. He's settled and the cult of Apollo is now
free to flourish at Delphi. His home there is made.
He's home at last. He has this place settled.
We are going to take a turn in some of the materials in this course.
There's one more tool we want to pull out of our tool box in the coming lecture and
then from there we are going to move on to a different genre all together.
We are going to start talking about Greek tragedies.
In the coming week these things are going to be quite wonderful.
Look forward to reading those with you. One more tool in the toolbox and then we
will move on to tragedy.