Analyzing a fragment of the Anead compared to Archilochus

Anead Excerpt

long suffering also in war, until he founded a city

and brought his gods to Latium: from that the Latin people

came, the lords of Alba Longa, the walls of noble Rome.

Muse, tell me the cause: how was she offended in her divinity

Archilochus Excerpt

"Nothing is unexpected, nothing can be sworn as 

impossible,

or marveled at, since Zeus, the father of the Olympians, 

made night out of noonday, keeping back the light

of the beaming sun; and upon mankind came fear. 

Henceforth all things are to be believed, all things

expected

by men. None of you should in future be amazed..." 

            At first reading of the Anead fragment -assuming the reader is not previously aware of its source- we know five things. First, we know that this fragment gives away the conclusion of the work and the goal. We know this because of the words, "long suffering also in war, until he founded a city". "Long suffering" invokes the idea of a struggle to reach the goal of "found[ing] a city". Second, we know that this fragment is about the journey of a warrior, because he was "in war" for an extended period of time. Third, we know that the warrior is loved by the gods, because he "brought his gods to Latium". The possessive "his" and objectification of "brought" allows the reader to assume that "he" can control the gods in some way, which must mean that either he has conquered them or that they are cooperative. Fourth, we know that he is respected by humans because he was able to "[found] a city and...from that the Latin people/came". People followed him to a new place and established "the walls of noble Rome". Fifth, we know that the poet is merely telling the story; he calls for his "Muse" to help inspire his words. Sixth, we know that there were struggles with a goddess involved in the story, because "she [was] offended in her divinity". Divine beings are most commonly gods and goddesses and an offense of a human to a god typically involves struggles for the human on behalf of the god. From these five things, we can reasonably infer that "he" is an epic hero. If we can assume the reader is well-versed, it is also reasonable to infer that the reader now understands that this fragment is from the Anead, thus will fully understand its implications with regard to the complete epic. If we assume the reader is not well-versed and cannot decipher that this is from the Anead, they may also be able to infer that the fragment is from the beginning of the epic and presents them with the goal or moment of victory when they can become aware that the story has peacefully resolved. All people generally know that Rome was established, but the story is in how it came to be. We can assume they will infer this from the fragment because the final line invokes the Muses for additional information looking back on the details of the story. 

                 At first reading of the Archilochus fragment, the reader can tell that it is entirely in the voice of the author and represents personal religious beliefs and beliefs about the source of the natural world. At closer reading, the reader can infer that the fragment was written with the intention of addressing a large audience of people who might not agree with the author's beliefs. This can be inferred from "none of you in future should be amazed". Use of "none" implies more than two people, "in future" implies that the audience was previously amazed, "should be" implies that the speaker is pushing his beliefs onto the audience. The reader can also assume either innate hubris or wisdom of age in the speaker from his definite statements, "Nothing is unexpected, nothing can be sworn as/impossible". 

                Comparing these two fragments using the aforementioned analyses lead us to three conclusions. First, the speaker in the former is far less egotistic than the speaker in the latter. This is evident in their tone and the fact that the former is merely telling the story of another and invokes assistance from the Muses to do so, where the latter states his own ideas as definitive, clear-cut fact in a manner that is mean to change the minds of others. Second, the gods are a part of the lives of both speakers in a very deep but different way. While the former mentions "his gods" when mentioning the gods of the warrior, he also calls upon his own "Muse", which implies that he has a more personal relationship and connection to the Muses than other gods. The latter, however, speaks only of Zeus and his power over all mankind and the world as a whole. This implies that the speaker of the latter relates best to Zeus, which explains his self-assured nature as this is a nature similar to that of Zeus as he is portrayed in classical mythology. Finally, that the former speaker may not know as much about the world as the latter, as he only tells the stories of others and does not seem to learn and experience on his own. The words of the latter come from a place that speaks from experience. The way he talks about the day "Zeus...made night out of noonday" makes it sound like he was there to see that "upon mankind came fear". Thus, it is possible that the speaker in the latter can be trusted to tell a more literal story based on experience than the formal observer characterized in the former fragment.