The Battle of Frogs and Mice

A digital edition by George Grimbilas and Phillip Mitsis,
illustrations by David Beck and readings by David Starr.
Text under construction - send comments and observations to
phillip.mitsis@nyu.edu

The Proem

Ἀρχόμενος πρώτης σελίδος^* χορὸν ἐξ Ἑλικῶνος

ἐλθεῖν εἰς ἐμὸν ἦτορ ἐπεύχομαι εἵνεκ’ ἀοιδῆς,

ἣν νέον ἐν δέλτοισιν ἐμοῖς ἐπὶ γούνασι θῆκα,

δῆριν ἀπειρεσίην, πολεμόκλονον ἔργον Ἄρηος,

εὐχόμενος μερόπεσσιν ἐς οὔατα πᾶσι βάλεσθαι

πῶς μῦες ἐν βατράχοισιν ἀριστεύσαντες ἔβησαν,*

γηγενέων ἀνδρῶν μιμούμενοι ἔργα Γιγάντων,

ὡς λόγος ἐν θνητοῖσιν ἔην· τοίην δ’ ἔχεν ἀρχήν.

Ἀρχόμενος

masc. sg. nom. pres. mid. part., ἄρχω, ‘to begin,’ + gen. Unlike Homer and Hesiod, the poet starts with a text that is already written down and seemingly independent of the Muses. This calls attention to the text’s self-sufficiency. Moreover, unlike Hesiod, though like Homer, the poet remains anonymous and gives no details about any of his/her personal circumstances or relates any claims of poetic authority.

σελίδος

σελίς -ίδος, ἡ, ‘a lined column,’ typically written on papyrus, though here on tablets (3). By extension, σελίς comes to mean page and is often so translated, though this is rather awkward given that tablets do not have pages. Since "lined column" sounds strange to a modern ear, we substitute "column of verses", thus specifying what is on the lined column. See textual note.

χορὸν

χορός -οῦ, ὁ, ‘dance, choral dancing, chorus.’ Some have found this image of a chorus of Muses dancing into the poet's heart to be everything from improbable, to deliberately parodic, to discomfitingly ham-handed. Of course, poetry can also just be figurative. What is clear is that there is a convergence between the camouflaged invocation of the Muses and the writing down of the poem in the beginning. The Hesiodic poet assumed an analogous stance starting his song from the Muses who taught him of the genesis/birth of the cosmos. However, while in the case of the Theogony the convergence was between the act of singing and the content of the song, in the case of the Batrachomyomachia the convergence is between the invocation of the Muses and the act of writing. Moreover, in the Hellenistic period Muses evolve from being goddesses of μουσική to goddesses of παιδεία (cf. Murray 2004.) The poet seems to be invoking them as patrons for his publication not for compositional inspiration.

Ἑλικῶνος

Ἑλικών -ῶνος, ὁ,
‘Helikon, mountain in Boeotia;’ beginning with Hesiod's Theogony, a haunt of the Muses. It is striking that the author would choose to call on Hesiod's muses for a poem about war.

ἦτορ

ἦτορ, τό, only nom. and acc. sing. in epic, ‘heart,’ as seat of passions, reason, life. Contrast note 209, κέαρ. In the Hellenistic period a lively question was whether the mind was in the heart or the brain.

ἐπεύχομαι

1 sg. pres. ind. mid., ἐπεύχομαι [ἐπί, εὔχομαι], 'to pray.'

ἀοιδῆς

ἀοιδή -ῆς, ἡ, ‘song, as art, as act of singing; song, chant, topic of a song.’ It is unclear whether this ἀοιδή was previously composed orally and performed (even by someone else) or just now composed as it was being written down on tablets. Cf. (6) and (8) for the implication that the poet is either retelling a story already in circulation or modeling it in relation to another text.

νέον

νέος -α -ον, ‘new, fresh, recent,’ neut. adj. as adv., ‘lately, newly.’

δέλτοισιν

δελτος -ου, ἡ, ‘tablet (for writing).’ In the Hellenistic period, tablets could be a symbol of the poet, but since tablets were covered in wax so that they could be erased easily and reused, there may be an underlying suggestion of the impermanence of the poem and its subject. It also is unlikely that the whole work would have been put on wax tablets, which may suggest a slight disjunction between the conceit of the poem and actual practice.

ἐμοῖς

after the caesura naturally taken with γούνασι, but perhaps with δέλτοισιν as well.

δῆριν

δῆριν: δῆρις -ιος, ἡ, ‘contest, conflict, combat.’ The placement of δῆριν at the very beginning of a line creates the impression of the beginning of an epic proem (like Iliad 1.1: Μῆνιν; Odyssey 1.1: Ἄνδρα; Thebaid 1: Argos), moreover, it is followed by the adjective ἀπειρεσίην, which refers to the huge size of the conflict (note the πολ- words used in the Iliadic and Odyssean proems). But since this would- be beginning of the poem is anticipated by the “Hesiodic” beginning with Ἀρχόμενος, the poet may well be combining the two types of archaic epic proems, the Hesiodic and Homeric/Cyclic.

ἀπειρεσίην

ἀπειρεσίην: ἀπείρεσιος -α -ον, [πείραρ, 'limit, end'], 'infinite, immense, innumerable.'

πολεμόκλονον

πολεμόκλονος -ον [πόλεμος, κλόνος], ‘that rouses the tumult of war, bellicose.’ (κλόνος, -ου, ὁ, ‘turmoil, melée, esp. of battle’). Used of Athena at line 275. (κλόνος, -ου, ὁ, 'turmoil, melée, esp. of battle'). Used of Athena at line 275.

Ἄρηος

Ion. poet. epic gen., Ἄρης -εως, ὁ, ‘Ares, god of war.’ Ares is one of three Olympians mentioned in the poem by name along with Zeus and Athena.

εὐχόμενος

εὐχόμενος: masc. sg. nom. pres. mid. part., εὔχομαι to make a vow, to pledge, to promise often with the future infinitive, though here βαλέσθαι. A difficulty arises because of possible alternative construals. Some, for instance, supply an understood acc. with the inf., translating “beseeching them to,” which gives a very different picture of the role of the Muses. R.J. Barnes suggests to us “Praying to mortals to cast into the ears of all” which makes the point about human reperformance, but requires a slightly awkward construal of the Greek. In our rendition, it is the poet who in accordance with his vow casts forth the song to all. That the poet would ask the Muses to cast forth the poem into the ears of all directly seems rather unlikely, especially if they have already entered somehow into his heart. This is the poet’s job either performatively or textually. For a general survey, Morrison (2007).

μερόπεσσιν

μέροψ -οπος, ‘mortal, human,’ usu. pl.; here as substantive.

οὔατα

οὖς, ὠτός, τό, ‘ear.’ It has been suggested that the poet wants help from the Muses for the poem’s performance on this particular occasion, however this is not explicit - and it may be entirely a fictional trope. There are, to be sure, Hellenistic representations of poets seated and reading to an audience from tablets. Though it seems rather aspirational that the Muses could enable one particular performance to reach the ears of all mortals. From Homer, Theognis and Sappho on, poets hope that (in some unspecified way) their poems will live forever, i.e., always be re-performed. The thought also might be, however, that the written text will eventually be published beyond its tablet form, then disseminated with the help of the Muses, perhaps by being read aloud by other readers, which was the common ancient practice. The lack of a verb of reading is interesting in two ways: (a) it suggests that the emphasis is on listening to poetry; (b) it is at odds with the clearly writerly aspect of σελίδος, and perhaps leaves open the possibility that the poet wants to remain intentionally unclear regarding the manner of the poem’s dissemination and performance.

μῦες

μῦς, μυός, ὁ, ‘mouse, rat.’

ἀριστεύσαντες

masc. pl. nom. aor. mid. part., ἀριστεύω, ‘to be the best, excel.’ The aorist participle is sometimes taken to suggest that we will see mice vanquishing frogs. But ἀριστεύω without an object merely points to the mice’s excellence, here, proleptically, in battle; moreover, the Giants they are imitating in the next line lost to the Olympians. See textual note.

γηγενέων

γηγενής -ες [γῆ, γίγνομαι], ‘born from the earth; son of the Earth, of Titans and Giants.’ The mice are further linked to Giants in the poem, cf. notes 171, 283.

μιμούμενοι

masc. pl. nom. pres. mid. part., μιμέομαι, ‘to imitate.’ Mice are associated with mimesis here and at line 149 with a likely aural pun on μου.

Γιγάντων

Γίγας -αντος, ὁ, ‘Giant, usu. pl. Giants.’ From Homer on, in art and literature, the Giants are depicted as an aggressive tribe of men, but often not especially enormous in size, (cf. Gantz, 1996). In Theogony 185, they are called (pleonastically?) μεγάλους Γίγαντας. To a Greek ear, the point of comparison with mice might therefore not be primarily to size, so it is not clear how comical the effect is meant to be here. By the same token, the Giants are enemies of the Olympians and come to represent forces of barbarism that are ultimately defeated. These elements do not map seamlessly onto the depiction of mice in the poem who are wronged by injustice, cf. note 97, and generally reflect culture as opposed to nature, cf. note 33. But throughout the poem they are associated with the Giants. In a few late texts, mice are described as being spontaneously generated from the earth, hence “earth-born,” but not in this text, cf. line 30.

ὡς λόγος

The referent of λόγος is ambiguous. It might be that the poet is retelling a pre-existing λόγος about the mice and frogs (6) or more likely just referring to a poem about the ἔργα of the Giants (7) that the mice are in some way imitating. If λόγος refers to an existing poem about the ἔργα of the Giants, this would be the only explicit intertextual reference in the poem, and it would be to an authority that has become detached from its original context. There were various versions of the Gigantomachy – the war between the Olympians and the Giants – circulating in antiquity, cf. the mythographer Apollodoros (Pseudo-Apollodoros) for the most detailed surviving account, Bibliotheca 1.6.1–2. Any relation of these to our poem is a matter of pure speculation. Expressions like this are employed in archaic epic and lyric poetry as indexical markers, so, for example, from Alcaeus, i.e., fr. 111 Page (=74 D.): ὡς λόγος, κάκων ἀ[λ]χος, Ὠλεν' ἔχῃσεν. See Nelson 2023.

ἔην

ep. 3 sg. impf. ind. act., εἰμί, ‘to be.’ In statements of existing facts, the imperfect instead of the present is often used by assimilation to the time of the narrative, usually set forth in the main verb.

τοίην

τοῖος -α -ον, ‘such, of such a kind.’ The use of this proximal demonstrative adjective here and also for the introductions of other speeches in lines 12, 92, 138, and 271 suggests that the poem may be a not perfectly remembered retelling by the poet of an earlier version of the tale (cf. Plato, Symposium 173e; Thuc.1.31) or perhaps it reflects the common poetic conceit that the poet is not inventing the tale completely from scratch.

δ'

Serves to indicate that something differs from what precedes it. It denotes a slight contrast and is weaker than ἀλλά, but stronger than καί, it being both adversative and copulative. It thus marks off the ensuing tale from the preceding λόγος and thereby completes the formal ring composition. Does δ΄ signal a shift of subject back to the σελίς or to the ἀοιδή and is therefore basically resumptive? That is, the author could be referring to the initial column of the tablet having such a start or the more aural/ephemeral notion of the song having such a start. The former gives a bit more punch and rounds out the ring composition a bit more strongly, but semantically there is not enough difference to make a choice.

ἔχεν

The imperfect may refer to a topic previously discussed in the present. In this instance, how mice, in their excellence, went among frogs (6).

ἀρχήν

ἀρχόμενος ... ἀρχήν: the proem is framed by two words that are morphologically related. ἀρχή also has the sense of 'origin' or 'source', so in addition to its beginning, the poet is going to relate the cause of the war. We translate 'beginning' to preserve the aural connection.

Beginning from my first column of verses I am praying

that a chorus from Helikon come into my heart for the sake of a song,

which I newly put down in tablets on my knees,

a conflict without limit, tumult-rousing work of Ares,

vowing to cast forth into the ears of all mortals [5]

how mice, in their excellence, went among frogs,

imitating the deeds of Earth’s Giant Sons,

as is the tale among mortals; and it, though, has a beginning to this effect.

Listen to the Text

Lines 1-8