A preliminary version of this paper was delivered under the same title at the 1987 American Philological Association meetings in New York, as part of session 4A4.

1. Vernant, Jean-Pierre, ‘Parole et signes muets’, in Vernant (ed.), Divination et rationalité (Paris 1974), 9–25Google Scholar. See also his ‘La divination. Contexte et sens psychologique des rites et des doctrines’, Journal de Psychologie (1948), 299–325Google Scholar.

2. On pyromancy in general see Pauly-Wissowa, RE 5, col. 2543–44. On the Iamids, see e.g. Pindar 01. 6.111; 8.1–7 and below.

3. See Vernant, ‘Parole’ (n.l above), 19: ‘Contrairement à l’interprétation des signes ou aux procédures de la divination technique, qui exigent les services d’un devin spécialisé, la parole oraculaire du dieu, une fois formulée, est, comme toute autre parole, accessible à chacun; pour la comprendre, nul besoin d’une compétence particulière en matière de divination; il suffit, à quiconque vient pieusement consulter I’oracle, des mȇmes qualités de saine réflexion, de pondération et de juste pénétration d’esprit, le fin politique.’ Cf. also Humphreys, Sally, ‘“Transcendence” and Intellectual Roles: The Ancient Greek Case’, in Anthropology and the Greeks (London 1978), 237Google Scholar: ‘The interpretation of oracles could be decided by public debate; while omens were plain statements in a language that only the specialist knew, oracles were riddling statements in a language known and accessible to all. Consequently the Greeks were predisposed by their experience of oracles to submit all revelations to public discussion and arguments about interpretation.’

4. The best example of the interpenetration of common with divinatory speech is the phenomenon of cledonomancy. See August Bouché-Leclerq, , Histoire de la divination dans I’antiquité (Paris 1879)Google Scholar, vol. 1, 154–60, 313–15; Halliday, William, Greek Divination (London 1903), 47–53, 229–34Google Scholar; Pauly-Wissowa RE 18, col. 373–78; Peradotto, John, ‘Cledonomancy in the Oresteia’, AJP 90 (1969), 1 - 21Google Scholar. On riddles, see Walther Schultz, ‘Rätzel’, RE2nd ser., 1 Halbband, 1,1, cols. 62–125; Veyne, Paul, Les Grecs ont-ils cru à leurs mythes? (Paris 1983), 4IffGoogle Scholar.

5. Vernant, ‘Parole’ (n.l above), 18f.: ‘Cette préeminence de la parole comme moyen de communication avec l’au-delà s’accorde avec le caractère foncièrement oral d’une civilisation où l’écriture n’est pas seulement… un phénomène récent, mais où, par son caractère entièrement phonétique, elle prolongue la langue parlée… II [sc. l'écrit] n’est plus la spécialité d’une catégorie de «savants», disposant grâce à lui d’un moyen d’accès privilégié à la connaissance du réel… il voue à la publicité et met sous le regard de tous des aspects du savoir que la parole réservait à des groupes fermés et privilégiés.’ Eric Havelock draws a distinction between ‘craft literacy’ and the ‘democratization’ of literacy made possible by the development of alphabetic writing; see The Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences (Princeton 1982), 82–88Google Scholar. For a stronger insistence on the dependence of democratic institutions on literacy, see Harvey, F., ‘Literacy in the Athenian Democracy’, REG (1966), 585–635CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. On the question of the extent and depth of literacy during this period, see for example Havelock (n.5 above) and The Greek Conception of Justice (Cambridge, MA 1978)Google Scholar; Harvey (n.5 above); Youtie, H., ‘Because They Do Not Know Letters’, ZPE 19 (1975), 101–8Google Scholar; Boring, T., Literacy in Ancient Sparta (Leiden 1979)Google Scholar; Lanza, Diego, Lingua e discorso nell’Atene delle professioni (Naples 1979), 52–88Google Scholar; Burns, A., ‘Athenian Literacy in the Fifth Century B.C.’, JHI 42 (1981), 371–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cole, S., ‘Could Greek Women Read and Write?’, in Helene Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York 1981), 219–45Google Scholar; Longo, Oddone, Tecniche della communicazione nella Grecia artica (Naples 1981), 59–74Google Scholar; Nieddu, G., ‘Alfabetismo e diffusione sociale della scrittura nella Grecia arcaica e classica: pregiudizi recenti e realtà documentaria’, S&C 6 (1982), 233–61Google Scholar; Harris, W., ‘Literacy and Epigraphy’, ZPE 52 (1983), 87–111Google Scholar, and Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA 1989), 45–115Google ScholarPubMed; Johnson, A, ‘The Extent and Use of Literacy: The Archaeological Evidence’, in Robin Hägg (ed.), The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century (Stockholm 1983), 63–68Google Scholar.

7. On the opposition between speech and writing, and how the passage from one medium to the other comes to be represented in fifth-century literature, see Lanza (n.6 above); Longo (n.6 above); Segal, Charles, ‘Tragédie, oralité, écriture’, Poétique 50 (1982), 131–54Google Scholar, and ‘Greek Tragedy: Writing, Truth and the Representation of the Self, in Harold Evjen (ed.), Mnemai Classical Studies in Memory of Karl H. Hulley (Chico 1984), 41–67Google Scholar; Gentili, Bruno, ‘Oralità e scrittura in Grecia’, in Mario Vegetti (ed.), Oralità Scrittura Spettacolo (Torino 1983), 30–52Google Scholar. On the issue in general, see Goody, Jack, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge 1977)Google ScholarPubMed, and The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society (Cambridge 1986)Google Scholar; Goody, J. and Watt, Ian, ‘The Consequences of Literacy,’ in Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge 1978), 27–69Google Scholar; Ong, Walter, Orality and Literacy. The Technologizing of the Word (London 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. See Humphreys (n.3 above), 217–21.

9. On Olympian 8 in general, see Metzger, Friedrich, Pindars Siegeslieder (Leipzig 1880), 375–84Google Scholar; von Wilamowitz, U., Pindaros (Berlin 1922), 403–06Google Scholar; Duchemin, Jacquelin, Pindare poete et prophète (Paris 1955), 140Google Scholar; Bowra, CM., Pindar (Oxford 1966), 151, 299Google Scholar; Crotty, Kenneth, Song and Action. The Victory Odes of Pindar (Baltimore 1982), 24–26Google Scholar. On specific passages, see references in subsequent notes.

10. See Dickson, K., ‘The Semiotics of Eidos in Olympian 8’, Helios 15 (1988), 115–126Google Scholar.

11. Duchemin (n.9 above), 140, says of this invocation, along with the invocation of Thebes in Isthmian 1, that they ‘n’auraient, sans leur magnificence verbale, d’autre caractère que celui d’une officielle banaliteV

12. The scholia on this line (Drachmann, Anders, Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina [Amsterdam 1966], vol. 1, 239f.Google Scholar) are divided over whether it simply means that Zeus favors the pious (understood generally) by granting them the object of their prayers (i.e. victory in the games), or whether its reference is specifically to the granting of some sign by Zeus to the Iamids on account of their piety. In either case, the text itself is conspicuously silent on this issue. The Iamids themselves receive no sign from Zeus here; this privilege is instead reserved for Apollo in Epode Two.

13. Bouché-Leclerq (n.4 above), p. 107: ‘La divination aborde l’homme de deux manières, par le dehors ou par le dedans: elle se manifeste par des signes extérieurs ou par une illumination intérieure. De là, deux méthodes générales auxquelles peuve se ramener tous les precédés et rites particuliers; la méhode que les anciens ont appelée artificielle… et la méthode dite naturelle ou spontanée.’ Properly speaking, the psychological or experiential basis of Bouché-Leclerq’s matrix (outer/inner) of course distinguishes it from the formal or structural basis used by Vernant (silent/spoken). Moreover, Bouché-Leclerq’s exclusion (p. 108) of ‘la parole direct des dieux apparaissant aux hommes et leur parlant avec une voix perceptible aux sens’ from the category of divination would seem to complicate the matter further. In what follows I shall attempt to show that the oppositions outer/inner and silent/spoken are in fact isomorphic when considered as permutations of the matrix sign/voice. The latter in turn reflects the traditional distinction drawn in the philosophy of language between ‘indication’ and ‘expression’ — on which see e.g. Derrida, Jacques, Speech and Phenomena And Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs, tr. D. Allison (Evanston 1973), esp. 17–31Google Scholar.

14. Bouché-Leclerq (n.4 above), p. 116: ‘La divination ne peut done découvrir et constater que des rapports artificiels, convenus, comparables de tout point à ceux qui rattachent les mots d’une langue aux objets qu’ils désignent. L’ensemble des signes divinatoires était véritablement un langage…’ On semiotics and the structural study of systems of signification, see de Saussure, Ferdinand, Course in General Linguistics, tr. W. Baskin (London 1974)Google Scholar; Barthes, Roland, Elements of Semiology, tr. A. Lavers and C. Smith (New York 1967)Google Scholar; Lyons, John, Introduction to Theoretical Linguistws (Cambridge 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eco, Umberto, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The binary opposition fundamental to signification may of course be expanded by the insertion of a middle or neutral or zero degree between the two polar terms.

15. On technical details of pyromancy, as far as they can be ascertained, see Bouché-Leclerq (n.4 above), 178–82. For additional instances of signifying systems with reference to ancient culture, see Nagy, Gregory, ‘Sema and Noesis. Some Illustrations’, Arethusa 16 (1983), 35–55Google Scholar.

16. See Drachmann (n.12 above), 25If.; Borthwick, E., ‘Zoologica Pindarica’, CQ 26 (1976), 198–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 203.

17. Derrida (n.13 above), p. 77, observes that ‘The “apparent transcendence” of the voice… results from the fact that the signified, which is always ideal by essence… is immediately present in the act of expression. This immediate presence results from the fact that the phenomenological “body” of the signifier seems to fade away at the very moment it is produced; it seems already to belong to the element of ideality. It phenomenologically reduces itself, transforming the worldly opacity of its body into pure diaphaneity.’

18. On the ‘straight’ as the ‘true’, see e.g. Luther, Wilhelm, ’“Wahrheit” und “Lüge” im ältesten Griechentum (Leipzig 1935), 110f., 144–48Google Scholar; Komornicka, Anna, ‘Termes déterminant le Vrai et le Faux chez Pindare’, in Ernst Schmidt (ed.), Aischylos und Pindar (Berlin 1981), 81–89Google Scholar. On the status of divination in Pindar, see Anastase, Stefan, Apollon dans Pindare (Athens 1975), 269–76Google Scholar.

19. See Kakridis, J., ‘Des Pelops und Iamos Gebet bei Pindar’, in William Calder and Jacob Stern (edd.), Pindaros und Bakchylides (Darmstadt 1970), 159–74Google Scholar.

20. On this and on the prominence of other pairs in Olympian 6, see Gildersleeve, Basil, The Olympian and Pythian Odes of Pindar (Cambridge 1890), 171fGoogle Scholar.; Norwood, Gilbert, ‘Pindar, Olympian vi 82–88’, CP 36 (1941), 396Google Scholar; Finley, John, Pindar and Aeschylus (Cambridge, MA 1955), 116CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stern, Jacob, ‘The Myth of Pindar’s Olympian 6’, AJP 91 (1970), 338fGoogle Scholar. with notes 21 and 22; Rubin, Nancy, ‘Pindar’s Creation of Epinician Symbols: Olympians 7 and 6’, CW 74 (1980-81), 85fGoogle Scholar.

21. On the issue of truth and paternity in Pindar, see Farenga, Vincent, ‘Pindaric Craft and the Writing of Pythian IV’, Helios 5 (1977), 3–37Google Scholar; Segal, Charles, Pindar’s Mythmaking: The Fourth Pythian Ode (Princeton 1986), 171–79Google Scholar; Dickson (n.10 above).

22. See Young, David, Three Odes of Pindar (Leiden 1968), 37fGoogle Scholar.

23. Drachmann (n.12 above), 176.

24. On the special difficulty of pyromantic divination, see Prometheus’ claim (Aesch., PV 498f.) kai phlogōpa sēmata/exōmmatōsa, prosthen ont’ epargema (‘and I opened the eyes of signs in fire, which previously had been occluded’) — which incidentally stresses the visual character of the signs involved here.

25. See e.g. Hundt, J., Der Traumglaube bei Homer (Griefswald 1935)Google Scholar; Devereux, Georges, Dreams in Ancient Greek Tragedy (Berkeley 1976)Google Scholar; Kessels, A, Studies on the Dream in Greek Literature (Utrecht 1978), 133–48,194–98Google Scholar; Bremmer, Jan, On the Soul (Princeton 1982), 19Google Scholar.

26. See Farenga (n.21 above) and Segal (n.21 above), 48–51, who also draws attention to the oral nature of this and other representations of prophecy in Pythian 4. He also notes (50, with n.38) the etymological play with cognates of the verb anapneo (‘to breathe forth’) in both Pythian 4 and Olympian 8 (7, 36, 70).

27. Segal (n.21 above) comments that even though the Argonauts are said to ‘obey signs’ (199f: samasin pithomenoi), ‘these also have a quasi-verbal component’ (48, n.l).

28. It may not be stretching things too far to see in aiteis (‘…the son you ask for…’) a continuation of the etymological play between aietos and Aias. Even if unintended (which seems unlikely) and thus ‘purely accidental’, the alliteration aietos — aiteis — Aias could not but have struck the ear and suggested a significant connection; on the notion of ‘accident’ in ‘mythical thought’, see Peradotto (n.4 above), 3f. with n.7 (quoting Cassirer). The fact is that oracular and portentous events in Pindar are virtually always structured as dialogue, in the form of question (or prayer) and response. In Olympian 6, Iamos calls (ekalesse, 58) and asks (aiteōn, 60) and is answered (antephthegxato, 61) and addressed (metaudasen, 62) by Apollo. Zeus in Pythian 4 likewise responds (antaüse, 197) to the call (ekalei, 195) of the prophet Mopsos, just as the Delphic oracle replies with a ‘spontaneous shout’ (automatōi keladōi, 60) to the question (anakrinomenon, 63) of Battos. In Isthmian 6, Herakles’ prayer (41–49) substitutes for the request of Telamon implied in aiteis, and the name Aias resonates not only with the aietos that is the emblem of his character but also with the aietos sent by Zeus in response to the question implicit in aiteis. Ajax the eagle is the answer to his father’s prayer. This pattern of question and response is broken up and distributed over two separate events in Olympian 8, where the mantic Iamids of the first strophe ‘inquire’ (parapeirōntai, 3) of Zeus but ostensibly get no answer, and Apollo in the second epode receives unasked the vocal (legei, 43) apparition from Zeus.

29. On etymological naming in general, see Peradotto, (n.4 above) and Man in the Middle Voice: Name and Narrative in the Odyssey (Princeton: forthcoming 1991)Google Scholar; Norman Austin, ; ‘Name Magic in the Odyssey’, CSCA 5 (1973), 1–19Google Scholar, and references. On naming and significant names in Pindar, see Quincey, J., ‘Etymologica’, RhM 106 (1963), 142–48Google Scholar; Kromcr, Gretchen, ‘The Value of Time in Pindar’s Olympian 10’, Hermes 104 (1976), 420–36Google Scholar, and (on the name ‘Iamos’ in Olympian 6) the works cited in n.20 above.

30. On the semiotics of the body in Pindar, and physical appearance as a sign of inner qualities, see n.10 above.

31. See Furtwängler, A., ‘Herakles’, in Roscher, Wilhelm (ed.), Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mylhologie (Leipzig 1884-1937)Google Scholar, vol. 1, cols. 2139–53; Montuoro, P. Zancani, ‘Il tipo di Eracle nell‘arte arcaica’, Rendiconti della Academia dei Lincei, ser. 8,2 (1947), 207–21Google Scholar; Brommer, Frank, Herakles, die zwölf Taten des Helden in antiker Kunst und Literatur (Münster 1953), 64–66Google Scholar. More theoretically, on the relation between icon/sign/name and identity, see Zeitlin, Froma, Under the Sign of the Shield Semiotics and Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes (Rome 1982), 37–51Google Scholar, 191–219.

32. See Peradotto (n.4 above).

33. The explicit passages are familiar ones. Nemean 9.48–50 relates wine and the voice to each other in the context of song at a symposium, and then calls wine ‘sweet prophet of revelry’ (glukun komou prophatan). In Paean 6.1–6 Pindar styles himself ‘the Muses’ songful prophet’ (aoidimon Pieridōn prophatan). The same claim is made in frr. 83 and 137. On the theme in general, see Duchemin (n.9 above), 32ff., and ‘Mission sociale et pouvoirs magiques du poète comparés à ceux du roi dans le lyrisme de Pindare’, in The Sacral Kingship (Leiden 1959), 379–93Google Scholar; Gianotti, Gian Franco, Per una poetica pindarica (Torino 1975), 64fGoogle Scholar.; Segal (n.21 above), 47–51.

34. On the identity of the first person pronoun in the odes, see Lefkowitz, Mary, ‘TO KA1 EGO: The First Person in Pindar’, HSCP 67 (1963), 177–253Google Scholar, and ‘Choral vs. Monodic Lyric’, unpublished paper delivered in session 4A4 of the 1987 American Philological Association meetings.

35. Compounds of -phthegktos (aga-) and -phthoggos (anti-, baru-, meli-) are regularly used of the music to which the ode is sung: cf. Ol. 6.21,91; Pyth. 8.31; Isth. 2.7; 6.9,34; fr. 110. Fr. 178 refers to the phthegma pagkoinon of the poet Polymnestos of Kolophon. Fitzgerald, William(Agonistic Poetry. The Pindaric Mode in Pindar, Horace, Hölderlin and the English Ode [Berkeley 1987], 111 fGoogle Scholar.) rightly draws attention to the merging of the poet’s voice with that of the prophet Teiresias in Nemean 1; see also Segal, Charles, ‘Time and the Hero: The Myth of Nemean 1’, RhM 117 (1974), 29–39Google Scholar, esp. 35.

36. See Svenbro, Jesper, La parole et le marbre. Aux origines de la poetique grecque (diss. Lund, 1976), 186–93Google Scholar.

37. On this passage see Norwood, Gilbert, Pindar (Berkeley 1945), 74Google Scholar and 116; van Leeuwen, J., Pindars Tweede Otympische Ode (Assen 1964)Google Scholar vol. 1, 225–32 for commentary and references; Race, William, ‘Pindar and the Vulgus’, CSCA 12 (1979), 251–67Google Scholar; Simpson, Michael, ‘The Chariot and the Bow as Metaphors for Poetry in Pindar’s Odes’, TAPA 100 (1969), 437–73Google Scholar, esp. 449–58.

38. See e.g. Heinimann, Friedrich, Nomos und Physis (Basel 1965), 92–101Google Scholar; Gundert, Hermann, Pindar und sein Dichterberuf (Frankfurt 1935), 15–19Google Scholar; Hubbard, Thomas, The Pindaric Mind A Study of Logical Structure in Early Greek Poetry (Leiden 1985), 107–24Google Scholar.

39. See n.18 above. On parphasis in Pindar, see Miller, A., ‘Phthonos and Parphasis: The Argument of Nemean 8.19–34’, GRBS 23 (1982), 111–20Google Scholar, and Walsh, George, The Varieties of Enchantment (Chapel Hill 1984), 38–42Google Scholar.

40. See Defradas, J., ‘DIORTHOSAI LOGON: La septième Olympique’, in Heller, John (ed.), Serta Turyniana (Urbana 1974), 34–50Google Scholar.

41. Kromer (n.29 above). For other discussions of this ode, see Svenbro (n.34 above), 178f.; Segal, ‘Tragédie…’ (n.7 above), 140–42; and Kromer’s note 1.

42. Kromer (n.29 above, 423–26) appropriately cites Phaedrus 274C-275E on the relationship of writing to memory and the distinction between true memory (mnēmē) and mere reminding (hypomnēsis), but does not follow up on the issue of forgetfulness induced by writing.

43. Segal (n.7 above), 142: ‘L’ «acte d’écrire»… ne s’effectue en fait sur aucune support concret, papyrus, pierre ou parchemin, mais sur les tablettes invisible de l’esprit du poète. À travers la figure humoristique d’une écriture invisible, Pindare affirme que le kleos oral est un monument plus faible que le mot écrit… Pindare a l’esprit de faire de l’écriture la servante de sa vérité’ orale.’

44. See Burzachechi, M., ‘Oggetti parlanti nelle epigrafi greche’, Epigraphica 24 (1962), 3–54Google Scholar; Raubitschek, Anthony, ‘Das Denkmal-Epigramm’, in L’Èpigramme Grecque (Geneva 1968), 1–36Google Scholar; Nagy, Gregory, The Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore 1979), 28fGoogle Scholar.; James Day, ‘Rituals of Praise: The Inscriptional Epigram as a Species of Archaic Encomium’, unpublished paper delivered in session 4A4 of the 1987 American Philological Association meetings.

45. On these antitheses in Pindar and archaic thought in general, see Detienne, Marcel, Les maîtres de vérité dans la Grèce archaïque (Maspero 1967), 9–27Google Scholar.

46. By way of justifying his exclusion of ‘la parole directe des dieux apparaissant aux hommes et leur parlant avec une voix perceptible aux sens’ from the category of ‘divination’, Bouché-Leclerq (n.4 above) remarks that in the latter case ‘il n’y a plus là de divination proprement dite, mais une révélation qui s’opère hors de l’homme et sans lui, entièrement comparable à un livre qui tomberait tout écrit du ciet’ (108, my emphasis). In light of the contrast between voice and mute sign in Pindar and archaic thought in general, Bouché-Leclerq’s analogy to a written text could not be less appropriate.

47. Segal (n.7 above), 142, draws attention to euru kleos (‘broad fame’) as a ‘métaphore homérique, horizontale.’ On the ‘path’ of poetry, see in general Becker, Otto, Das Bild des Weges (Berlin 1937)Google Scholar. On the image in Pindar, see Ol. 1.110; 6.23–25, 73; 9.47, 105; Pyth. 11.38; Nem. 7.50–52; Isth. 4.1; 6.22, with Bowra (n.9 above), 252–54; Simpson (n.37 above); Steiner, Deborah, The Crown of Song: Metaphor in Pindar (London 1986), 76–86Google Scholar.

48. See Derrida (n.17 above).

49. On tradition and originality in Pindar, see Bernardini, Paola, ‘Linguaggio e programma poetica in Pindaro’, QUCC 4 (1967), 80–97Google Scholar. For a summary of evidence for Pindar’s textuality, see Svenbro (n.36 above) and Segal (n.21 above), 9–12,153–64.

50. See Svenbro (n.36 above), 176–78, 189–93. On tekhnē and technique, see Hubbard (n.38 above), 107–23.

51. On the subject of what constitutes ‘oral’ poetry, Gentili (n.7 above), 31, remarks: ‘Perché’ una poesia possa definirsi orale è necessario il ricorrere di tre condizioni, che possono sussistere simultaneamente o separatamente: 1) oralità della composizione (improvvisazione estemporanea); 2) oralità della communicazione (performance); 3) oralità della transmissione (tradizione affidata alia memoria).’ In general, Pindar clearly would have us believe that he fulfills at least the second criterion, if not at times also the first.

52. See Lefkowitz (n.34 above) on the use of the first-person pronoun in the odes, and William|Mullen, Choreia: Pindar and Dance (Princeton 1982), 9–45Google Scholar, on the apparent fusion of words, music and dance in the performance of the epinician — a fusion that takes place in and also constitutes ‘the absolute present of the ode’ (27).

53. See e.g. Ong (n.7 above), 78–116; Goody, Domestication (n.7 above), 36–51; Goody and Watt (n.7 above); Segal (n.21 above), 153–61.