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    Plan détaillé Texte intégral Introduction 1. A model of lexical semantics 2. The semantic relatedness of ὅσιος and ἁγνός 3. The approximation of ὅσιος and ἁγνός through embodied cognition 4. ὅσιος, ἁγνός and the metaphor of embodied cognition 5. The metaphor ‘piety = purity’ as the basis for jokes Conclusion Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Purity and Purification in the Ancient Greek World. Texts, Rituals, and Norms

    Ce livre est recensé par

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    Table des matières

    Moral Purity in the Athenian Theatre

    Saskia Peels-Matthey

    p. 93-109

    Texte intégral Introduction 1. A model of lexical semantics 2. The semantic relatedness of ὅσιος and ἁγνός 3. The approximation of ὅσιος and ἁγνός through embodied cognition 4. ὅσιος, ἁγνός and the metaphor of embodied cognition 5. The metaphor ‘piety = purity’ as the basis for jokes Conclusion Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Texte intégral

    Introduction

    1In the famous elegiac couplet above the entrance of the temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus, “purity” is defined as having a pious frame of mind:

    Ἁγνὸν χρή ναοῖο θυωδέος ἐντὸς ἰόντα
    ἔμμεναι· ἁγνεία δ’ ἐστὶ φρονεῖν ὅσια

    He who goes into the sweet smelling temple must be pure.
    Purity is to think pious thoughts.1

    2Τhe identification of ἁγνεία with ὁσιότης in this presumably early fourth-century inscription has led to much discussion.2 ὁσιότης and ἁγνεία seem to have dissimilar semantic fields,3 and therefore the definition of ἁγνεία as “thinking ὅσια” is rather unexpected. At the same time, it has been argued that ὅσιος and ἁγνός sometimes function as (near-) synonyms.4 To complicate matters further, the semantics of each of these terms have been a matter of scholarly concern.5 The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the semantic relationship between ὅσιος and ἁγνός, and to suggest one cause, additional to those previously identified by Chaniotis,6 for the identification of these two concepts in the Epidaurian couplet.

    1. A model of lexical semantics

    3To be able to compare the meaning of the two words it is useful to state a view of what “lexical meaning” and “lexical competition” entail. That is, how are the semantics of individual words represented in the brain, and what do differences in meaning between words consist of? Defining our answers to these questions will enable a more precise analysis of the differences in meaning between ὅσιος and ἁγνός.

    4In this paper, a cognitive linguistic view of lexical semantics will be assumed.7 According to this approach, the representation of the meaning of a lexeme in the mental lexicon (the dictionary inside the head of a language user) is not a ‘definition’, but rather a network of related usages. Language users hear lexemes being used in different ways in different contexts and remember this information, storing multiple concrete options for the interpretation of a lexeme in the mental lexicon, and accumulating them.8 Language users thus create mental inventories of concrete encounters with a lexeme, and these form the basis of a user’s impression of ‘what a word means’.9

    5Information on the various usages of a lexeme is not only stored, but this combined knowledge also influences the interpretation of individual encounters with the lexeme. Experimental research has shown that when a listener recognises a word, he or she accesses the whole multiplicity of stored interpretative options.10 Although a listener always hears and understands a word in a specific context in a specific usage, all stored senses of a word are temporarily co-activated during word recognition. Thus, the understanding of a lexeme in a specific utterance is influenced by the other impressions a speaker has of the general usages of this lexeme.

    6These ‘impressions of the general usages’ are structured, because semantic networks include an awareness of which usages of the lexeme are more ‘prototypical’, and which are more ‘peripheral’.11 Besides that, users may or may not develop a more abstract, mental (subconscious) representation of what the various usages of a lexeme have in common, a ‘schema’, but this is not a central or obligatory part of their knowledge.12

    7Moreover, cognitive linguists propose that lexical knowledge cannot be disconnected from other experiences, ideas and concepts associated with a lexeme. Lexical entries crucially include an awareness of the ‘semantic frames’ associated with their various usages.13 When a speaker recognizes a word, not only the stored usages, but also other knowledge known about the context (s) of the word in question are unconsciously activated.14 For example, the mention of ‘Santa Claus’ would make us think of a fat man with a beard and a red suit, but perhaps also of presents, cold winter days, snow, coziness, buying a Christmas tree. The ‘cultural frame’ in which Santa Claus figures is the Christian (and modern) holiday with all pleasant (or stressful) connotations that are associated with it.

    8To understand the mental representation of a particular lexeme in the mind of a hypothetical Greek language user in a particular time and place, we should study that user’s linguistic experience of this word, i.e. the encountered usages of the lexemes, the internal structure of the semantic network, and the contexts associated with it. A comparison between the meaning of two lexemes should be a contrastive analysis of the networks of usages (distribution patterns), the internal make-up of these networks (prototypical vs. more peripheral usages) and the respective frames with which these lexemes are connected. Two words, even if they have a closely related or identical ‘referential meaning’ (that is, referring to neighbouring or identical parts of conceptual space), may have different ‘semantics’. This is the case when they activate different sets of associated words, ideas, and frames. Moreover, different usages of the same lexeme may fit into different frames.15 These insights can be connected to the discussion at hand. Although a user always interprets a lexeme in a particular usage and in a particular context, other stored usages of a lexeme may be temporally co-activated and so may the frames associated with these other usages.16

    2. The semantic relatedness of ὅσιος and ἁγνός

    9Based on the previous characterization of ‘word meaning’, we may now discuss the (contrastive) semantics of ὅσιος and ἁγνός. As far as ὅσιος is concerned, I will present a summary of my previous semantic study of this term.17 Between Homer and the end of the fifth century, the large majority of occurrences of ὅσιος in literary texts are evaluations of humans and their behaviour (80 %).18 In these cases, ὅσιος evaluates human attitudes and actions that are pleasing to the gods. A person was considered ὅσιος if he/she respected the gods by acknowledging them as gods, knew his/her place with respect to them, and honoured them in ritual practice. But crucially, in order to be considered ὅσιος, a person also had to honour those relationships that the gods were especially interested in, and behave well towards their parents or children, spouses, brothers or sisters, guests or hosts, suppliants, and the dead. Thus, ὅσιος is in this period a religious and moral evaluation, in which ‘moral’ means: “of or relating to human character or behaviour that is good or bad.”19 The highly rare cases in which ὅσιος qualifies a god are inherently paradoxical, and I have argued that each of these occurrences is a poetical play of words with an intended effect.20 In the remaining cases (20 %), ὅσιος syntactically qualifies another entity, for example money (χρήματα) or other objects. In such cases the phrase as a whole qualifies the person involved and is a moral evaluation of this person. That is to say, in my view a person who used ὅσια χρήματα used money in a way that is pleasing to gods.21

    10The evaluation “ὅσιος” is typically associated with a small number of frames: for example, the frame of upholding the long-term reciprocal relationship between parents and children, or of that between guests and hosts. All occurrences of ὅσιος may also be placed in one wider cultural context. This is the frame of exchange between gods and men. The relationship between gods and men was conceptualised in the literature as a bond of reciprocal χάρις, characterized by the voluntary exchange of gifts. We may say that ὁσιότης refers to what humans do to give χάρις to gods, thereby pleasing them and giving them (concrete gifts and/or) τιμή. To accomplish this, humans should not only honour the relationship with the gods themselves, but also those relationships between humans in which the gods took a special interest. To “do ὅσια”, therefore, is not to carry out religiously neutral actions, but to do something positive.

    11The meaning of ἁγνός has been much discussed, but it may nevertheless be useful to assess its semantics again, in contrast to ὅσιος, by examining the usages of this lexeme in the same period (between Homer and the end of the first century BC). Note first of all that ἁγνός and ὅσιος have very different distribution patterns. 26 % of all occurrences of ἁγνός and ἀνάγνος refer to gods, and 55 % to objects. The majority of these objects (40 %) are things belonging to gods, such as their temples and altars;22 and natural phenomena such as light,23 fire,24 water,25 heaven.26 As explained above, ὅσιος and ἀνόσιος normally do not qualify deities. Moreover, ὅσιος never qualifies these types of objects.27

    12In a minority of cases referring to objects (15 %), ἁγνός/ἀνάγνος and ὅσιος/ ἀνόσιος qualify the same types of objects: namely, things that are used for or belong to rituals of worship28 and things connected to humans, such as their actions, speech, body parts.29 Finally, 19 % of ἁγνός and ἀνάγνος qualify humans and their behaviour.30 Τhus, in about one third of the examined cases (19 % qualifying humans plus 15 % qualifying the same types of objects), ὅσιος/ἀνόσιος and ἁγνός/ἀγνός refer to the same types of entities.

    13These usages of ἁγνός all seem connected to the frame of interacting with the divine world. Sometimes these two sets of lexemes even refer to identical objects, situations or persons. For example, Empedocles speaks about “singing from mouths that are ὅσια”, the chorus in Aeschylus’Suppliants wants to sing from ἁγνῶν στομάτων.31 Theseus’ hand, “stained” by the murder of Hippolytus (through his curse) is ἀνάγνος, the hands of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are ἀνόσιος.32 Hippolytus is ἁγνός from the marriage bed, Ion is ὅσιος from the bed.33 A holy grove in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus is not ἁγνός to tread, but in various inscriptions, temples are not ὁσίη to enter.34 Menelaus, after his refusal to help Orestes in Euripides’ eponymous play, is neither ὅσιος nor ἁγνός; Oedipus is ἀνόσιος and ἀνάγνος in the same play.35

    14To better understand the semantic relationship between ὅσιος and ἁγνός in these cases, we should examine the usage of ἁγνός still more closely. What kind of impressions would an ancient Greek language user have had of the connection between the various usages of ἁγνός and which frames did he or she associate with this lexeme? The ‘schema’ of ἁγνός is not clear to scholars of Greek religion, especially, the question of how to connect the different usages for humans and for gods. ἁγνός is etymologically connected to ἅζομαι, which means “to have a feeling of respectful awe”. ἁγνός was originally, in André Motte’s words, “l’objet d’une sainte crainte”.36 This ‘object’ was, in the first occurrences of the term, always a god.37 According to Rudhardt, then, “ἁγνός signifie la majesté des dieux, ce qui les élève au-dessus de l’humanité et commande aux hommes une vénération quelque peu craintive”.38 ἁγνός is used in the frame of discussing impressive and awe-inspiring deities and natural phenomena. Many of these deities and phenomena may also be described as “pure”, for example when ἁγνός refers to virgin goddesses or to clear water.

    15Rudhardt argued that humans can sometimes possess the same quality “dans la mesure où il [a human being] évite de s’engager dans un acte de génération ou de mort: dans la mesure par conséquent, où il s’abstrait de la vie effective” and this is “une pureté extratemporelle”.39 However, in Parker’s view “it is difficult… to reconcile divine and human hagneia by saying that the mortal, by his heroic abstinence, comes to share in the divine awesomeness”. He suggests instead that ἁγνός may have originated as a Janus-faced adjective, meaning “demanding respect” (when applied to gods) and “showing respect” (when applied to humans), similar in this way to the lexeme αἰδοῖος. For Parker, the notion of purity became associated with the lexeme later (after the archaic period) because originally this was “merely the most distinctive aspect of that ‘respect’”.40 By contrast, in André Motte’s view, the earliest appearances of ἁγνός already express a notion of purity: more precisely, the purity that emanates from gods.41 It is uncontroversial that the notion of “purity” in the fifth century had become a highly prototypical and frequent usage of the lexeme ἁγνός. It often appears with a noun in the genitive case (and sometimes the preposition ἀπό) denoting or expressing a “polluting” or “contaminating” influence from which one is free—for example, murder, dead persons, or sex.42 In Parker’s words, “hagneia was for him [i.e., the worshipper] defined and felt in terms of purity”.43

    16By contrast, there is no good indication that ὅσιος ever denotes that a person is “(ritually) pure”. From the totality of its attestations, we gather that the evaluation ὅσιος places ritual activities in the broader context of all those things one must do to maintain a good relationship with gods.44 This colours the interpretation of individual occurrences. For example, an Aeschylean chorus prays that “Zeus, who distributes everything, never set his power against my judgments and may I not cease from approaching the gods with pious feasts (ὁσίαις θοίναις) and may I not offend with words”.45 The wish to approach the gods with ὁσίαις θοίναις may entail the hope that their offerings are pure, but it primarily places the activity of sacrifice in a broader frame. We can see this in the immediate context, too, since the chorus expresses the fear that the reciprocal bond with Zeus will be disturbed, and prays that it will also not speak any words that will result in such an alarming scenario. Similarly, in Andocides’ On the Mysteries a law states that the one who kills an enemy of the democracy shall be ὅσιος.46 In this law, it is also said that this individual is καθαρός with respect to his hands. Whereas καθαρός stipulates the absence of miasma, the term ὅσιος indicates that such a murder is, in fact, a way of keeping a proper relationship with the god. This entails but does not signify that there will be no pollution.47

    17A person who was ritually pure (ἁγνός) was able to participate in ritual activities and to interact with the divine world, thus being ὅσιος as well. ὅσιος and ἁγνός seem to coincide only in those cases in which, and only in the sense that, purity is a precondition for interacting with the divine world. But ὅσιος and ἁγνός very often conflict. For example, assisting in the funeral of family members is among the most important recurrent actions one needs to perform in order to be ὅσιος. Yet following the funeral, this person will not be ἁγνός during a certain number of days, during which he or she has to wait for the pollution to wear off. Having a sexual relationship within marriage, and for women to become pregnant and bear children, is ὅσιος. Upholding a good relationship with one’s spouse and refraining from illicit affairs was one of the key requirements of ὁσιότης.48 Yet, after sex, men and women are typically considered to be not ἁγνός for a certain period of time, or until they have washed themselves; and after childbirth, a relatively long period of being polluted applies to the mother and her direct environment. In these and comparable cases, one could not be ὅσιος and ἁγνός at the same time.49

    3. The approximation of ὅσιος and ἁγνός through embodied cognition

    18Seeing that ὅσιος and ἁγνός have differing semantic fields, what prepared for the identification of the two notions in the Epidaurian couplet? Angelos Chaniotis traced various possible origins for a developing “moralisation of ritual purity” in the Archaic and early Classical period. First of all, various causes of pollution (such as homicide and adultery) became the topic of written law. This development may have encouraged the Greeks to consider the conceptual link between purity and morality. Moreover, in increasingly popular mystery cults true piety was achieved by safeguarding a very high standard of purity, and fostering the mental link between the two concepts (piety and purity).50 In the following I will examine a third potential cause for the development of “moral purity”: the identification of purity and morality through metaphor.

    19A brief explanation of my use of the notion ‘metaphor’ is necessary. The term metaphor often refers to “a figure of speech in which a name or descriptive word or phrase is transferred to an object or action different from, but analogous to, that to which it is literally applicable”.51 Indeed, the expression of morality in terms of ‘cleanliness’ is a prominent figure of speech, not only in tragedy, but also in every day conversations. For example, we say that someone has a “spotless mind” or conversely, that a person has “played a dirty trick”. Or we may consider a matter a “dirty business”, in which case we need to “wash our hands of it” in order to start again “with a clean conscience”. The notion of ‘purity’ is used in similar metaphors, for example in the expression “he’s not exactly as pure as the driven snow”.

    20In this paper, we will instead employ the term ‘metaphor’ as it is used by Lakoff and Johnson. In their approach, “metaphor is [often] not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words”.52 They assume a stronger view of such cases, in which “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another”.53 Describing moral behaviour as if it were akin to cleanliness and purity is not simply a figure of speech, a poetical device, a rhetorical instrument, but rather, an expression of how humans actually grasp things. Humans understand and experience moral virtue as if it were akin to physical cleanliness. A haunting and powerful image in Shakespeare’s Macbeth illustrates the point. After she and her husband have murdered King Duncan, Lady Macbeth keeps on washing her hands. “Will these hands ne’er be clean?”, she exclaims in despair.54 But the figurative “stain of blood” won’t come off, because she feels consumed by her feelings of guilt.

    21This is an example of a psychological mechanism called ‘embodied cognition’. As Lakoff and Johnson have argued, humans understand experiences of an abstract nature (metaphysical, emotional, moral concepts) in terms of experiences of the body. In other words, the body plays an active role in cognition. As Lakoff and Johnson explain, “human concepts… are crucially shaped by our bodies and brains, especially by our sensorimotor system”, and “the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and the physical world”.55 This is why humans understand affection as something that is “warm”, what is good as “going up”, what is bad as “going down”, important things as “heavy, carrying weight” and immoral actions as “dirty”. In fact, in Lakoff and Johnson’s view, “most concepts are partially understood in terms of other concepts”, and thus “most of our normal conceptual system is metaphorically structured”.56

    22What mechanism causes us to reason metaphorically? It has been argued (again, by Lakoff and Johnson) that all embodied metaphors originate in infancy, because in this period the relevant abstract and physical experience are undifferentiated in experience. For example, for an infant, the feelings of warmth and affection are conflated, because a child experiences affection when he is being held close to the warm body of his mother or father.57 Similarly, morality and cleanliness are probably regularly undifferentiated in early childhood, because “being bad” often involves spilling food or drink, getting one’s clothes dirty, or staining clean things with dirty little hands. According to Feldman and Narayanan, such conflations in infancy lead to permanent neurological connections between two domains (physical and abstract).58

    23Humans not only conceptualise, reason about and comprehend the non-physical in terms of the physical, but these ways of thinking also guide their actions—not only in Shakespeare.59 This mechanism has been demonstrated in/by many psychological studies, for example with respect to the embodied metaphor Morality = cleanliness. In one experiment, people who discussed their sins during an interview were more inclined to wash their hands afterwards than people who had discussed more ‘neutral’ topics. Apparently, speaking about one’s own immoral actions leads to the desire for purification.60 In another experiment, subjects who had washed their hands before being interviewed judged morally dubious actions (of themselves and of others) discussed during the interview more positively than those who had not washed their hands. Thus, being physically pure seemingly leads to perceiving things as more morally virtuous.61 In a third experimental set-up, subjects who were invited to wear someone else’s sweater more often refused to do so if the owner of the sweater had been presented as a criminal than when the owner had not been presented as such. Apparently, in the eyes of these people, the sweater of an immoral person was somehow dirty or disgusting.62 Such experiments show how strongly ingrained this metaphor is.

    24The understanding of morality in terms of “purity” contains an extra metaphorical level (clean = pure). Lakoff and Johnson explain the connection succinctly: “A substance is pure when it has no admixture of any other substance within it. A common impurity is dirt… Thus, substances that are dirty are usually considered impure.”63 This is the origin of a common ‘extended’ embodied metaphor: Morality = purity.

    4. ὅσιος, ἁγνός and the metaphor of embodied cognition

    25In Archaic and Classical Greek thought, the qualifications ὅσιος and ἁγνός can represent the two poles of the metaphor Morality = purity (cleanliness), as is evidenced by various literary texts. For example, in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, it is claimed that “divine Justice honours the righteous man (Δική τὸν δ’ ἐναίσιμον τίει, 775). For example, in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, it is claimed that Justice (Δίκα, 773) “honours the righteous man” (τὸν δ’ ἐναίσιμον τίει, 775). This goddess, “having left gold-spangled houses, where people have filth on their hands, with averted eyes, turned to pious ones instead” (τὰ χρυσόπαστα δ’ ἔδεθλα σὺν | πίνωι χερῶν παλιντρόποις | ὄμμασι λιποῦσ’ ὅσια †προσέβα † | , 776-778). In this metonymic expression, the “pious (ὅσια) houses” obviously refer to the inhabitants of these houses, whose conduct pleases gods. Such religious virtue is contrasted with immorality expressed in terms of the metaphor of dirt. What Divine Justice “turns away from with averted eyes” is metaphorically expressed as “houses (being inhabited by individuals) with filthy hands (σὺν πίνωι χερῶν)”.

    26A similar type of expression occurs in Euripides’ Helen, in a scene in which the priestess Theonoe tells one of her servants: “But you, in case someone harmed the path by | treading with an impious foot, submit it to a purifying flame, | and strike the torch against it in front of me, so that I may pass through”, σὺ δ’ αὖ κέλευθον εἴ τις ἔβλαψεν ποδὶ | στείβων ἀνοσίωι, δὸς καθαρσίωι φλογί, | κροῦσόν τε πεύκην, ἵνα διεξέλθω, πάρος.64 As was discussed above, ἀνόσιος does not denote what is “impure” or “filthy”, but refers to human behaviour that the gods disapprove of. Here, as in the previous example, the evaluation ὅσιος is used in a metonymic expression. The hypothetical person who “treads with an ἀνόσιος foot” is obviously impious himself. This person’s religious immorality is again metaphorically expressed in terms of a problem in the physical word. He “has damaged” (ἔβλαψεν) the path by walking on it (στείβων). Since the proposed solution is a cleaning: ( “submit it to a purifying flame” [δὸς καθαρσίωι φλογί]), the idea seems to be that the path has been somehow “stained”. While ἀνόσιος does not refer to impurity, it is identified with these notions through the embodied metaphor morality = purity (cleanliness).

    27The term ἁγνός is used in the same metaphor, representing its other pole. In Sophocles’ fragmentary play The Tracking Satyrs, the antonym ἀνάγνος appears in a context where Silenus is hurling all kinds of abuse at the satyrs, in a situation in which they have just expressed their fear. For example, Silenus calls them “cowards” (lit. “seeing terror in every shadow”, ἐν πάσῃ σκιᾷ φόβον βλέποντες, 145), tells them they are “made of wax” (μάλθης… ἐκμεμαγμένα, 146), and even that they amount to the “worst of beasts” (κάκιστα θηρῶν, 147). Precisely in this context, Silenus also refers to the ἄναγνα σώματα (146) of the satyrs. Given the context, this does not seem to be a physical description of dirty bodies or anything of the sort. Rather, ἀνάγνος seems to function as a swear word, expressing the figurative “filthiness” of these characters, whose morality is rejected on the grounds of their cowardice.65

    28An early metaphorical usage of ἁγνός and καθαρός may be found, or is at least implied, in a passage of Hesiod’s Works and Days. Here, Perses is warned against inappropriate conduct in the small group of human relationships that have the special interests of the gods (327-332): wrongful conduct towards suppliant, guest, brother, and father. Zeus will punish him of such unjust deeds (ἔργων ἀδίκων, 334). This inventory of bad behaviour is as a whole contrasted with advice on the proper religious behaviour: one should sacrifice to the gods “purely and cleanly” (ἁγνῶς καὶ καθαρῶς). The contrast that is made between this religious advice concerning sacrifice, and the previous ἔργα ἄδικα reinforces the perception of all mentioned offences as religious crimes. At the same time, since “sacrificing ἁγνῶς and καθαρῶς” is contrasted to “committing ἔργα ἄδικα”, this metaphorically draws the terms ἁγνός and καθαρός into the same sphere of ethical-religious evaluation.

    29In the second stasimon of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, the chorus prays: “may destiny find me carrying away a reverent purity in all words and deeds” (863-864). The ἁγνεία that the chorus envisages here is set forth by divine laws (νόμοι) “of which Olympus alone is the father” (867). These νόμοι are not, as we might expect, customary rules for ritual purity. Rather, they seem more similar to Antigone’s divine and ethical precepts, ἄγραπτα θεῶν νόμιμα.66 This is apparent from the fact that ἁγνεία is juxtaposed only to moral disqualifications throughout the choral song. After discussing ὕβρις (in the first antistrophe, 873-79), the chorus focuses on Δίκη in the second strophe (883ff.). The chorus expresses the wish that a man who does not fear Justice (Δίκας ἀφόβητος, 885) or respect the images of the gods (δαιμόνων ἕδη σέβων, 886) be destroyed by a nasty fate. If, by contrast, (the gods should not punish him and so apparently) such injustices are τίμιαι (895), i.e. are considered as conferring τιμή to gods, the chorus wonders: “why should I dance” (τί δεῖ με χορεύειν, 896)? These last famous words place this stasimon firmly in the frame that normally ὅσιος and its cognates activate, that of “honouring the interhuman and religious obligations that enable one to continue one’s reciprocal relationship with the gods”. The choice of the term ἁγνεία to metaphorically express the notion of such religious morality instead seems to be triggered by the severity of this context. Faced with the horrors of Oedipus’ actions, it does not suffice for the members of the chorus to wish themselves to be in proper relationship to the gods (ὁσιότης): their disgust makes them desire a complete ἁγνεία.67

    30Two final cases which have been much discussed occur in Euripidean tragedy. In Orestes, we find the following conversation:

    Με. εὖ γοῦν θίγοις ἂν χερνίβων…
    Ορ. τί δὴ γὰρ οὔ;
    Με. … καὶ σφάγια πρὸ δορὸς καταβάλοις.
    Ορ. σὺ δ’ ἂν καλῶς;
    Με. ἁγνὸς γάρ εἰμι χεῖρας. Ορ. ἀλλ’ οὐ τὰς φρένας.68

    Me. You would handle the holy water really well.
    Or. Well, why not?
    Me. And to slay victims before battle!
    Or. But you would do it well?
    Me. Yes, my hands are pure.
    Or. But not your heart.

    31Menelaus implies that Orestes cannot function in cultic life because he is polluted as a result of the matricide he committed (1602).69 Orestes, in turn, tells Menelaus, his uncle, that his hands may be ἁγνός but his mind is not (1604). The remarkable aspect of this example is that normally ἁγνός refers to a state resulting from actions (attending a funeral, having sex, murdering someone, etc.), but not from thoughts. Orestes can transfer ἁγνός to the realm of the mind by making the metaphorical connection between purity and moral virtue. I interpret his accusation as being grounded in Menelaus’s previous refusal to help Orestes. Earlier in the play, Orestes had supplicated Menelaus (380ff.), by invoking the reciprocal obligations Menelaus has towards him as Agamemnon’s son.70 But Menelaus refused (682-716), after which he was repeatedly called κακός71 and even ἀνόσιος by Orestes and Electra.72 Thus, Menelaus’ “lack of mental purity” seems a metaphorical continuation of these moral disqualifications.73 Similarly, in Euripides’ Hippolytus Phaedra tells the nurse that although her hands are pure, her “mind has some pollution” (χεῖρες μὲν ἁγναί, φρὴν δ’ ἔχει μίασμά τι, 317). She is referring, of course, to her incestuous desire for Hippolytus, which would lead, if she acted upon it, to an impious transgression of normal familial relationships.74 Indeed, the nurse’s reaction shows that she fails to understand what Phaedra means: μῶν ἐξ ἐπακτοῦ πημονῆς ἐχθρῶν τινος; “You don’t mean through spells that have harmed you, from one of your enemies, do you?”75 This signals that the metaphorical use of ἁγνός as “mentally pure” is apparently a novel usage of the term.

    5. The metaphor ‘piety = purity’ as the basis for jokes

    32Dramatists draw implicitly on the metaphorical relatedness of ἁγνός and ὅσιος (and καθαρός) when the association of purity and morality is the basis for irony. One such example occurs in Euripides’ Cyclops. Recall from the Aeschylean passage quoted above that the moral virtuousness of individuals was metonymically expressed in terms of “pious houses” (ὅσια ἔδεθλα, A. Ag. 776-79), and that it was contrasted with figurative dirt. This is part of a recurrent pattern in Greek drama, in which morality is expressed in terms of the purity of a home. Orestes contrasts his own “godless dwellings” (δυσσεβῆ μέλαθρα) with the καθαρὰ μέλαθρα in which Pylades lives;76 a messenger in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King thinks that whole rivers could not wash Oedipus’ house clean, so many horrors has it seen.77 The opening scene in Cyclops exploits precisely this figurative identification of physical cleanliness of a house and personal morality. But Polyphemus makes a mistake when he completely dissociates the cleanliness of his “home” from his own moral state.

    33Hardly any dramatic character could be more impious than the Cyclops. Polyphemus violates proper religious conduct by eating his suppliants and guests, and he transgresses against gods and parents alike in his complete disrespect of Zeus and his father Poseidon.78 It is therefore not surprising that he is repeatedly called δυσσεβής and ἀνόσιος throughout this play.79 In the opening scene, when Odysseus has just arrived on the island where the Cyclopes live, he begins talking with the satyr Silenus. Odysseus has many questions, but Silenus cuts the conversation short. He needs to get on with his work, he says, because the Cyclops prefers to be received in a “clean cave”:

    καὶ νῦν, τὰ προσταχθέντ’, ἀναγκαίως ἔχει
    σαίρειν σιδηρᾶι τῆιδέ μ’ ἁρπάγηι δόμους,
    ὡς τόν τ’ ἀπόντα δεσπότην Κύκλωπ’ ἐμὸν
    καθαροῖσιν ἄντροις μῆλά τ’ ἐσδεχώμεθα.80

    And now—duty is duty—I must sweep
    the house with this iron rake,
    so that I may receive my absent master, the Cyclops,
    and his sheep in a clean cave.

    34This must be intended as a joke. As we have seen, in Greek thought, the moral situation of a person is recurrently and metaphorically described in terms of how “clean” or “pure” his house is. In this line of thought, the Cyclops’ wretched moral state stops him from being able to ever have a truly “clean house”. Euripides cleverly exploits the metaphorical interaction of different terms in the sphere of purity to get the audience to laugh.

    35A scene in Euripides’ Ion exploits precisely the same figurative identification of the purity of a home and of personal morality, but the boy Ion makes the opposite mistake. His obsession with cleaning Apollo’s temple, his “home”,81 leads him to believe that he needs to keep a personal, sublime “purity” of permanent sexual abstinence, in order to be ὅσιος to Apollo. This over-identification of piety and purity characterises Ion as someone with overly acute beliefs, and it is part of the comic presentation in this scene.

    36In the opening of the play Ion describes his duties as a temple servant of Apollo in Delphi, which consist mainly of cleaning the premises. He spends his days purifying the premises with water,82 sweeping the temple floor,83 and chasing away the birds.84 Ion is a particular figure. Critics have noted Ion’s obsessive attitude towards cleaning the sacred premises and his absurd idealisation of these housekeeping activities.85 Ion invokes his broom “come oh, instrument of service!” (ἄγ, ὦ προπόλευμα, 112), then dedicates an entire stanza (112-127) to the glorification of the object.86 The comic character of the monody is intensified by the fact that the “purity” of the temple premises is only possible through violence and bloodshed, as we see Ion with bow and quiver, ready to shoot down imaginary birds that will defile the sanctuary.87

    37Towards the end of the monody (at the end of the fourth strophe), Ion sings:

    ὅσιος ἀπ’ εὐνᾶς ὤν.
    εἴθ’ οὕτως αἰεὶ Φοίβῳ
    λατρεύων μὴ παυσαίμαν
    ἢ παυσαίμαν ἀγαθᾷ μοίρᾳ88

    Being hosios from the marriage-bed
    May I never cease to serve Phoebus
    in this manner,
    or if I do, may it be with a good fortune.

    38Ion’s statement that he is ὅσιος ἀπ’ εὐνᾶς “from the marriage bed” in all likelihood refers to his chastity.89 However, to express chastity or virginity, the adjective ἁγνός “pure” would have been a much more obvious choice.90 The term ὅσιος usually refers to behaving in the right way towards gods and towards humans in those relationships that are very important to the gods, for example the bonds between parents and children and between guests and hosts.

    39Compared to the alternative ἁγνός ἀπ’ εὐνᾶς (or something similar), the highly unusual construction ὅσιος ἀπ’ εὐνᾶς is striking and the audience will interpret it as such. What is the effect? To understand Ion’s remark better, we may compare the ending of this strophe with the endings of the previous strophes. In all of these endings, Ion focuses on two facts. First, he considers the god Apollo a kind of parent (in fact, Apollo is his real father but he does not know this at the moment). Secondly, since Apollo is like a father to him, he needs to take care of him in return for his upbringing. At the end of the first strophe Ion sings: “for as I was born without a mother a father, | I take care of those who nurtured me, | the temple of Phoebus.”91 Ion takes the personnel of the temple, and, it seems, the temple itself, as surrogate parents, whom he needs to take care of. θεραπεύειν is a verb that prototypically refers to the care of gods and parents alike.92 In the third strophe, Ion takes this idea one step further, identifying Phoebus himself as his father: “Phoebus is a begetter, a father to me… I call by the name of father my benefactor.”93 At the end of the fifth and last strophe, Ion identifies more specifically how he can “take care of” this parent, namely, by performing his menial tasks as a temple servant: “But with the tasks I am engaged in, | it is Phoebus I will serve, and I will never cease | to do service to those who nourish me.”94

    40By reading the endings of the first, third and fifth strophe together, we can see how Ion reinterprets his labour as a temple slave in terms of “taking care of” (θεραπεύειν, 183) the “parent” who nurtured him and brought him up: Apollo.95 We may now return to the ending of the fourth strophe quoted above and interpret it in this line of thought. Ion seems to say that in order to behave towards the god/parent properly (i.e. be ὅσιος), he must not only keep the temple “pure”, but also his body, by staying away from sex and marriage (ἀπ’ εὐνᾶς). Ion chooses his words carefully in order to combine two notions. Whereas ἁγνός is a descriptive term, ὅσιος evaluates behaviour; by selecting the term ὅσιος instead of ἁγνός, Ion focuses his statement on his relationship with Apollo.

    41What is the effect of the utterance? The problem with Ion’s standard of piety is that it was extraordinary. For male temple personnel, abstinence from sex was normally not necessary for more than a few days at a time, for example, at the time of a festival. Even for male priests, if sexual abstinence was required, this was likely to be restricted to a limited period. But there was nothing to stop most of them from getting married.96 While Ion boasts of his chastity/piety, for the audience, Ion’s “piety” probably was not exemplary for a lowly servant. On the contrary, Ion’s puritanism characterises him as odd and idiosyncratic. This impression is consistent with the image we get of Ion throughout the monody. Euripides cleverly uses the marked expression ὅσιος ἀπ’ εὐνᾶς with an intended comical effect: to subtly characterise Ion as someone with idiosyncratic views on sexuality.

    Conclusion

    42ὅσιος and ἁγνός are equated when both partake in an embodied metaphor: Purity = Morality. We have explored such metaphorical usage of καθαρός and ἁγνός especially as they occurred in the Athenian theatre. Perhaps this knowledge can help us understand the much-debated inscription from Epidaurus, with which I began. In the light of the preceding analysis, the identification of ὅσιος and ἁγνός in the Epidaurian couplet is not as unexpected as it seems. The theatre was a medium of mass communication, in which plays were performed and sometimes re-performed many times. Partly because of these dramatic utterances, the metaphorical, moral usage of ἁγνός may have become part of language users’ mental representation of ἁγνός in the course of the fifth century. In this way the theatre may have helped prepare for the equation of piety, morality and purity in Greek thought and in the Epidaurian couplet.

    Notes de bas de page

    1 Unless otherwise mentioned, all translations are my own.

    2 This inscription is quoted by Porph. Abst. 2.19.5 and Clem.Al. Strom. 5.13.3. The dating is based on the fact that Porphyry, through whose work the couplet was transmitted, was quoting from Theophrastus’ late-fourth-century (lost) text On Piety. Moreover, the temple of Epidaurus was built in the fourth century. Cf. Chaniotis (1997), p. 152; Von Staden (1996), p. 429; Parker (1996) [1983], p. 322-23.

    3 Rudhardt (1992) [1958], p. 41; Parker (1996) [1983], p. 323; Von Staden (1996), p. 429, cf. 430; Chaniotis (1997), p. 145; Bremmer (2002); cf. also, for example, the work of Wächter (1910), p. 8-10; Dodds (1951), p. 37.

    4 Connor (1988), p. 163: “in many cases the context makes it clear that hosios is being used as a near synonym for… hagnos”; Parker (1996) [1983], p. 330: “hosios is often a virtual synonym of katharos or hagnos”, with n. 18: e.g. A. Ag. 778, Ch. 378, S. OC 470, E. Ion 150, And. 1.96.

    5 Cf. infra, section 2.

    6 Chaniotis (1997), p. 148-49, cf. infra, section 3.

    7 See e.g. Engelberg (2000), Langacker (1987), (1988), (1990), (1991); Taylor (2003) [1989].

    8 This is known as the ‘usage-based thesis’. Cf. Croft and Cruse (2004), p. 3; Evans – Green (2006), p. 108.

    9 Taylor (2003) [1989], p. 161.

    10 Swinney (1979); Tanenhaus – Leiman – Seidenberg (1979); Onifer – Swinney (1981).

    11 Rosch (1975); Langacker (1991), p. 2.

    12 Langacker (1987), p. 371. In a recent paraphrase by Evans and Green (2006), p. 216, the ‘schema’ is “a skeletal representation of meaning abstracted from recurrent experience of language use”. Perhaps it is instructive that experiments show native speakers have trouble providing a ‘definition’ for even the simplest lexemes (Johnson-Laird 1987).

    13 Cognitive linguists base themselves on Fillmore’s “Frame Semantics” (e.g. 1976, 1982).

    14 Langacker (1987), p. 161-64; Taylor (2003) [1989], p. 85-87; Evans – Green (2006), p. 160, 207- 209, 216; Geeraerts – Cuyckens (2007), p. 5. In this sense, the mental storage of lexical meaning resembles the organisation of an encyclopedia more than that of a dictionary.

    15 Fillmore (1982), p. 124: “for many instances of polysemy it is possible to say that a given lexical item properly fits either of two different cognitive frames.”

    16 I have discussed these theoretical semantic concepts also in Peels (2016), chapter 1.

    17 Cf. Peels (2016).

    18 67 % of occurrences of ὅσιος and ἀνόσιος until the end of the fifth century refer to a person, qualifying him/herself, his/her behaviour or a situation resulting from human behaviour. In those cases in which ὅσιος and ἀνόσιος qualify an object, in 13 % of the cases the phrase obviously refers to human behaviour. This is the case, for example, when ὅσιος refers to human actions, emotions or speech. In these cases, the whole phrase is obviously an evaluation of what is expressed by that speech, emotion, action, etc.

    19 Oxford English Dictionary s.v. ‘moral’. On the connection between ὅσιος and δίκαιος, cf. Peels (2016), p. 107-148.

    20 On the rare use of ὅσιος for gods, cf. Peels (2016), p. 149-167.

    21 On the use of ὅσιος for objects and especially ὅσια χρήματα, cf. Peels (2016), p. 29-33, 83-85 and 207-251.

    22 Cf. e.g. B. Ep. 10.29, A. Sept. 278, E. Andr. 427.

    23 S. El. 86, Pi. fr. 153.2.

    24 E. El. 812.

    25 Cf. e.g. A. Pers. 497, Pi. P. 1.21.

    26 A. Pr. 280.

    27 Peels (2016), p. 29-33; Chapter 2, section 1.3; Chapter 3, section 3.4.

    28 Cf. e.g. A. Pers. 611, Ar. Ra. 386, S. Tr. 287.

    29 Cf. e.g. A. Ag. 245, E. IA 940, E. Hipp. e.g. 138, 1003, 1148, A. Sept. 752.

    30 Cf. e.g. Hes. Op. 337, A. Supp. 228, Antipho 2.10.4, Ar. Lys. 912, 1315, E. El. 975, S. Ant. 889.

    31 Emp. fr. 3, l. 7; A. Supp. 696.

    32 E. Hipp. 1148; A. Ch. 378.

    33 E. Hipp. 1003, E. Ion 150.

    34 S. OC 37; various inscriptions: cf. Peels (2016), Chapter 6, section 4.2.

    35 E. Or. 1213, 1604, S. OT 353, 823, 1383.

    36 Motte (1986), p. 138.

    37 In Homer, ἁγνός refers to “Artemis (Od. 5.123, 18.202, 20.71), to Persephone (Od. 11.386) and to a festival (ἑορτή, Od. 21.259). In the Homeric Hymns, ἁγνός refers to Demeter (h. Cer. 203, 439), Persephone (h. Cer. 337), to a sacred grove (ἄλσος, h. Merc. 187), and refers to the behaviour of goddesses: when Apollo was born, the goddesses present washed him ἁγνῶς καὶ καθαρῶς (h.Ap. 121).

    38 Rudhardt (1992) [1958], p. 40.

    39 Rudhardt (1992) [1958], p. 41.

    40 Parker (1996) [1983], p. 149-150. Cp. Benveniste (1969), p. 203.

    41 Motte (1986), p. 136-149, e.g. 139: “Le mot hagnos est bien anciennement lié au champ sémantique de l’idée de pureté.”

    42 Marriage/sex: E. Hipp. 1003: λέχους γὰρ ἁγνόν “pure from the marriage bed”; Pl. Lg. 840d: γάμων ἁγνός “pure from marriage”; blood/murder: E. Hipp. 316: ἁγνὰς… χεῖρας αἵματος “hands pure from blood”; Pl. Lg. 759c: ἁγνός φόνου “pure from murder”).

    43 Parker (1996) [1983], p. 148.

    44 Peels (2016), p. 49-55.

    45 A. Pr. 527-530.

    46 And. De Myst. 96. For a discussion of this passage, see JAccottet in the present volume.

    47 A similar explanation was already given by Moulinier (1952), p. 288: “καθαρός… signifie exempt de souillure. ὅσιος voudrait dire que de tels gestes sont bons.”

    48 On the thematic distribution of ὅσιος, cf. Peels (2016), p. 34-40.

    49 Cf. already Rudhardt (1992) [1958], p. 41.

    50 Chaniotis (1997), p. 148-49. See also his chapter in the present volume.

    51 Oxford English Dictionary s.v. ‘metaphor’.

    52 Lakoff – Johnson (1980), p. 6.

    53 Ibid., 5.

    54 W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1.

    55 Lakoff – Johnson (1999), p. 22, 37.

    56 Lakoff – Johnson (1980), p. 56.

    57 Lakoff – Johnson (1999), p. 46-56 (with p. 50-54 for examples of correlations of subjective judgments and primary childhood experiences).

    58 Cf. e.g. Feldman – Narayanan (2004).

    59 Lakoff – Johnson (1980), p. 3-5, 59, 115; Lakoff – Johnson (1999), p. 45, 50-54.

    60 Zhong – Liljenquist (2006).

    61 Schnall – Benton – Harvey (2009).

    62 Rozin – Nemeroff (1990).

    63 Lakoff – Johnson (1990), p. 307.

    64 E. Hel. 868-870.

    65 For the language of impurity used in invective and accusatory language, see also Cesteros and Chronopoulou in the present volume.

    66 S. Ant. 454. On this passage, see Harris (2004).

    67 My interpretation of these usages of ἁγνός in Sophocles’ OT and in Hesiod’s Op. thus differs from Robert Parker’s argument. Parker (1996) [1983], p. 150, suggests that ἁγνός originally had two sides, meaning “demanding respect” (of gods) and “showing respect” (of humans); in his view, purity may have been “merely the most distinctive aspect of that ‘respect’”. Hence, Parker interprets ἁγνεία in OT 864 as “reverence” and ἁγνῶς in Op. 337 as “reverently”. My suggestion is instead that ἁγνός means “pure” in these cases, but that “purity” metaphorically expresses “(religious) morality” or, indeed, “reverence”.

    68 E. Or. 1602-1604.

    69 Murderers were prohibited from approaching public altars.

    70 Orestes proposed that Menelaus should accept some troubles and repay his debt to Agamemnon by “paying a favour to those who deserved it” (χάριτας πατρῴας ἐκτίνων ἐς οὕς σε δεῖ, 453), i.e.: to Orestes and his sister.

    71 Orestes calls him κάκιστος (E. Or. 718, 736), κακός to his φίλοι (740) and a κακός φίλος (748). Electra likewise calls him Μενέλαος ὁ κακός, ὁ προδότης τοὐμου πατρός (1057). As Sluiter (2008), p. 4, has shown, the disqualification κακός is highly underspecified, leaving open an “enormous interpretative range”. In this case, the intention will be something between “cowardly” and “disloyal”.

    72 E. Or. 1211.

    73 For previous discussions of this passage, cf. e.g. in Moulinier (1952), p. 183, Parker (1996) [1983], p. 111.

    74 For previous discussions of this passage, cf. e.g. in Moulinier (1952), p. 201-203, Parker (1996) [1983], p. 323 n. 11.

    75 E. Hipp. 318.

    76 E. IT 693-94: σὺ δ’ ὄλβιός τ’ εἶ, καθαρά τ’, οὐ νοσοῦντ’, ἔχεις | μέλαθρ’, ἐγὼ δὲ δυσσεβῆ καὶ δυστυχῆ, “You are prosperous, and you have a house that is pure, not diseased, | while mine is godless and unfortunate”.

    77 S. OT 1227-1230: Οἶμαι γὰρ οὔτ’ ἂν Ἴστρον οὔτε Φᾶσιν ἂν | νίψαι καθαρμῷ τήνδε τὴν στέγην, ὅσα | κεύθει, τὰ δ’ αὐτίκ’ εἰς τὸ φῶς φανεῖ κακὰ | ἑκόντα κοὐκ ἄκοντα, “I do not think that the Ister or the Phasis could | wash clean this house, such horrors | does it conceal, and some it will soon expose to the light | horrors willed and unwilled”.

    78 E.g. E. Cyc. 316-346.

    79 E. Cyc. 26, 30, 348, 378, 438.

    80 E. Ion 32-35

    81 Ion sees the temple of Apollo, in which he works as a servant, as his home. This becomes clear from a discussion between Creusa and Ion: “Kr. Do you live in this temple, or in a house? | Ion. The whole home of the god is also my home, wherever I may sleep”, Κρ. ναοῖσι δ’οἰκεῖς τοισίδ’ ἢ κατὰ στέγας; | Ιων: Ἅπαν θεοῦ μοι δῶμ’, ἵν’ ἂν λάβῃ μ’ ὕπνος, 314-315.

    82 E. Ion 105-106, 144-149.

    83 E. Ion 103-105, 112-127.

    84 E. Ion 154-180.

    85 Cf. e.g. Zacharia (2003), p. 13: “his concern for purity at any cost in a recurrent theme in the monody”; lee (1997), p. 170: “an obsession with ritual purity, both physical and verbal, is clear”; “Ion picks out with some pride the task regularly presented as the meanest of a slave’s duties.”

    86 As Lee (1997), ad loc. coolly remarked: “it is obvious that Ion’s is no ordinary broom.”

    87 Lee (1997), p. 37: “several scenes have been seen as amusing if not downright comical: … Ion’s earnest activity with arrows and broom…”

    88 E. Ion 150-153.

    89 The phrase is also interpreted as such in the commentaries/translations of Hijmans (1991) and Lee (1997).

    90 ἁγνός is regularly used in similar constructions (with ἀπό and gen.) to denote the absence of a corrupting/polluting influence, but ὅσιος never is. Moreover, evaluations of proper or improper sexual behaviour are not typically framed in terms of τὸ ὅσιον. The adjective ὅσιος used with positive argumentative orientation occasionally describes a prudent and modest sexual life that is not guided by excessive desires (E. IA 555, Simon; P. Oxy. 2432, fr. 36, subfr. 1, l. 6-14), but not complete abstinence. The antonym ἀνόσιος sometimes evaluates problematic behaviour relating to love, marriage and sex, but most of these examples describe a seriously disturbed relationship between parents and children (S. OC 946, 981, S. OT 1289, 1360, E. Hipp. 764), husband and wife (E. El. 600, 926) or guest and host (Hdt. 2.114-15, concerning Paris). The fact that these examples evaluate a serious problem with those relationships that most interest the gods seems to motivate the disqualification ἀνόσιος more than the sexual misconduct in itself. For examples in which ἀνόσιος describes problematic sexual behaviour outside of the customary relationship of man and wife: B. Dith. 3.21, E. El. 1261, E. Ion 1093.

    91 109-111: Ὡς γὰρ ἀμήτωρ ἀπάτωρ τε γεγὼς | τοὺς θρέψαντας | Φοίβου ναοὺς θεραπεύω.

    92 LSJ s.v. θεραπεύειν ΙΙ.

    93 136, 138: Φοῖβός μοι γενέτωρ πατήρ | … Τὸν δ’ὠφέλιμον ἐμοὶ πατέρος ὄνομα λέγω.

    94 181-183: Οἷς δ’ἔγκειμαι μόχθοις | Φοίβωι δουλεύσω κοὐ λήξω | Τοὺς βόσκοντας θεραπεύων.

    95 According to Lee (1997), p. 171, this theme is a ‘seal’ pressing a stamp on every strophe.

    96 Bruit zaidman – Schmitt Pantel (1992), p. 52; Cole (1992), p. 112-113. One factor, as Mat Carbon points out to me in a personal communication, is that priests normally would go home and would not live in the sanctuary, whereas Ion does not have a home outside of the sanctuary.

    Auteur

    • Saskia Peels-Matthey

      s.peels@rug.nl

      Assistant Professor of Greek Linguistics at the University of Groningen and remains a Collaborateur Scientifique of the Département des sciences de l’Antiquité at the University of Liège. Her monograph Hosios: A Semantic Study of Greek Piety (Brill) appeared in 2016. She is a co-author of the Collection of Greek Ritual Norms (CGRN; http://cgrn.ulg.ac.be).

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    1 Unless otherwise mentioned, all translations are my own.

    2 This inscription is quoted by Porph. Abst. 2.19.5 and Clem.Al. Strom. 5.13.3. The dating is based on the fact that Porphyry, through whose work the couplet was transmitted, was quoting from Theophrastus’ late-fourth-century (lost) text On Piety. Moreover, the temple of Epidaurus was built in the fourth century. Cf. Chaniotis (1997), p. 152; Von Staden (1996), p. 429; Parker (1996) [1983], p. 322-23.

    3 Rudhardt (1992) [1958], p. 41; Parker (1996) [1983], p. 323; Von Staden (1996), p. 429, cf. 430; Chaniotis (1997), p. 145; Bremmer (2002); cf. also, for example, the work of Wächter (1910), p. 8-10; Dodds (1951), p. 37.

    4 Connor (1988), p. 163: “in many cases the context makes it clear that hosios is being used as a near synonym for… hagnos”; Parker (1996) [1983], p. 330: “hosios is often a virtual synonym of katharos or hagnos”, with n. 18: e.g. A. Ag. 778, Ch. 378, S. OC 470, E. Ion 150, And. 1.96.

    5 Cf. infra, section 2.

    6 Chaniotis (1997), p. 148-49, cf. infra, section 3.

    7 See e.g. Engelberg (2000), Langacker (1987), (1988), (1990), (1991); Taylor (2003) [1989].

    8 This is known as the ‘usage-based thesis’. Cf. Croft and Cruse (2004), p. 3; Evans – Green (2006), p. 108.

    9 Taylor (2003) [1989], p. 161.

    10 Swinney (1979); Tanenhaus – Leiman – Seidenberg (1979); Onifer – Swinney (1981).

    11 Rosch (1975); Langacker (1991), p. 2.

    12 Langacker (1987), p. 371. In a recent paraphrase by Evans and Green (2006), p. 216, the ‘schema’ is “a skeletal representation of meaning abstracted from recurrent experience of language use”. Perhaps it is instructive that experiments show native speakers have trouble providing a ‘definition’ for even the simplest lexemes (Johnson-Laird 1987).

    13 Cognitive linguists base themselves on Fillmore’s “Frame Semantics” (e.g. 1976, 1982).

    14 Langacker (1987), p. 161-64; Taylor (2003) [1989], p. 85-87; Evans – Green (2006), p. 160, 207- 209, 216; Geeraerts – Cuyckens (2007), p. 5. In this sense, the mental storage of lexical meaning resembles the organisation of an encyclopedia more than that of a dictionary.

    15 Fillmore (1982), p. 124: “for many instances of polysemy it is possible to say that a given lexical item properly fits either of two different cognitive frames.”

    16 I have discussed these theoretical semantic concepts also in Peels (2016), chapter 1.

    17 Cf. Peels (2016).

    18 67 % of occurrences of ὅσιος and ἀνόσιος until the end of the fifth century refer to a person, qualifying him/herself, his/her behaviour or a situation resulting from human behaviour. In those cases in which ὅσιος and ἀνόσιος qualify an object, in 13 % of the cases the phrase obviously refers to human behaviour. This is the case, for example, when ὅσιος refers to human actions, emotions or speech. In these cases, the whole phrase is obviously an evaluation of what is expressed by that speech, emotion, action, etc.

    19 Oxford English Dictionary s.v. ‘moral’. On the connection between ὅσιος and δίκαιος, cf. Peels (2016), p. 107-148.

    20 On the rare use of ὅσιος for gods, cf. Peels (2016), p. 149-167.

    21 On the use of ὅσιος for objects and especially ὅσια χρήματα, cf. Peels (2016), p. 29-33, 83-85 and 207-251.

    22 Cf. e.g. B. Ep. 10.29, A. Sept. 278, E. Andr. 427.

    23 S. El. 86, Pi. fr. 153.2.

    24 E. El. 812.

    25 Cf. e.g. A. Pers. 497, Pi. P. 1.21.

    26 A. Pr. 280.

    27 Peels (2016), p. 29-33; Chapter 2, section 1.3; Chapter 3, section 3.4.

    28 Cf. e.g. A. Pers. 611, Ar. Ra. 386, S. Tr. 287.

    29 Cf. e.g. A. Ag. 245, E. IA 940, E. Hipp. e.g. 138, 1003, 1148, A. Sept. 752.

    30 Cf. e.g. Hes. Op. 337, A. Supp. 228, Antipho 2.10.4, Ar. Lys. 912, 1315, E. El. 975, S. Ant. 889.

    31 Emp. fr. 3, l. 7; A. Supp. 696.

    32 E. Hipp. 1148; A. Ch. 378.

    33 E. Hipp. 1003, E. Ion 150.

    34 S. OC 37; various inscriptions: cf. Peels (2016), Chapter 6, section 4.2.

    35 E. Or. 1213, 1604, S. OT 353, 823, 1383.

    36 Motte (1986), p. 138.

    37 In Homer, ἁγνός refers to “Artemis (Od. 5.123, 18.202, 20.71), to Persephone (Od. 11.386) and to a festival (ἑορτή, Od. 21.259). In the Homeric Hymns, ἁγνός refers to Demeter (h. Cer. 203, 439), Persephone (h. Cer. 337), to a sacred grove (ἄλσος, h. Merc. 187), and refers to the behaviour of goddesses: when Apollo was born, the goddesses present washed him ἁγνῶς καὶ καθαρῶς (h.Ap. 121).

    38 Rudhardt (1992) [1958], p. 40.

    39 Rudhardt (1992) [1958], p. 41.

    40 Parker (1996) [1983], p. 149-150. Cp. Benveniste (1969), p. 203.

    41 Motte (1986), p. 136-149, e.g. 139: “Le mot hagnos est bien anciennement lié au champ sémantique de l’idée de pureté.”

    42 Marriage/sex: E. Hipp. 1003: λέχους γὰρ ἁγνόν “pure from the marriage bed”; Pl. Lg. 840d: γάμων ἁγνός “pure from marriage”; blood/murder: E. Hipp. 316: ἁγνὰς… χεῖρας αἵματος “hands pure from blood”; Pl. Lg. 759c: ἁγνός φόνου “pure from murder”).

    43 Parker (1996) [1983], p. 148.

    44 Peels (2016), p. 49-55.

    45 A. Pr. 527-530.

    46 And. De Myst. 96. For a discussion of this passage, see JAccottet in the present volume.

    47 A similar explanation was already given by Moulinier (1952), p. 288: “καθαρός… signifie exempt de souillure. ὅσιος voudrait dire que de tels gestes sont bons.”

    48 On the thematic distribution of ὅσιος, cf. Peels (2016), p. 34-40.

    49 Cf. already Rudhardt (1992) [1958], p. 41.

    50 Chaniotis (1997), p. 148-49. See also his chapter in the present volume.

    51 Oxford English Dictionary s.v. ‘metaphor’.

    52 Lakoff – Johnson (1980), p. 6.

    53 Ibid., 5.

    54 W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1.

    55 Lakoff – Johnson (1999), p. 22, 37.

    56 Lakoff – Johnson (1980), p. 56.

    57 Lakoff – Johnson (1999), p. 46-56 (with p. 50-54 for examples of correlations of subjective judgments and primary childhood experiences).

    58 Cf. e.g. Feldman – Narayanan (2004).

    59 Lakoff – Johnson (1980), p. 3-5, 59, 115; Lakoff – Johnson (1999), p. 45, 50-54.

    60 Zhong – Liljenquist (2006).

    61 Schnall – Benton – Harvey (2009).

    62 Rozin – Nemeroff (1990).

    63 Lakoff – Johnson (1990), p. 307.

    64 E. Hel. 868-870.

    65 For the language of impurity used in invective and accusatory language, see also Cesteros and Chronopoulou in the present volume.

    66 S. Ant. 454. On this passage, see Harris (2004).

    67 My interpretation of these usages of ἁγνός in Sophocles’ OT and in Hesiod’s Op. thus differs from Robert Parker’s argument. Parker (1996) [1983], p. 150, suggests that ἁγνός originally had two sides, meaning “demanding respect” (of gods) and “showing respect” (of humans); in his view, purity may have been “merely the most distinctive aspect of that ‘respect’”. Hence, Parker interprets ἁγνεία in OT 864 as “reverence” and ἁγνῶς in Op. 337 as “reverently”. My suggestion is instead that ἁγνός means “pure” in these cases, but that “purity” metaphorically expresses “(religious) morality” or, indeed, “reverence”.

    68 E. Or. 1602-1604.

    69 Murderers were prohibited from approaching public altars.

    70 Orestes proposed that Menelaus should accept some troubles and repay his debt to Agamemnon by “paying a favour to those who deserved it” (χάριτας πατρῴας ἐκτίνων ἐς οὕς σε δεῖ, 453), i.e.: to Orestes and his sister.

    71 Orestes calls him κάκιστος (E. Or. 718, 736), κακός to his φίλοι (740) and a κακός φίλος (748). Electra likewise calls him Μενέλαος ὁ κακός, ὁ προδότης τοὐμου πατρός (1057). As Sluiter (2008), p. 4, has shown, the disqualification κακός is highly underspecified, leaving open an “enormous interpretative range”. In this case, the intention will be something between “cowardly” and “disloyal”.

    72 E. Or. 1211.

    73 For previous discussions of this passage, cf. e.g. in Moulinier (1952), p. 183, Parker (1996) [1983], p. 111.

    74 For previous discussions of this passage, cf. e.g. in Moulinier (1952), p. 201-203, Parker (1996) [1983], p. 323 n. 11.

    75 E. Hipp. 318.

    76 E. IT 693-94: σὺ δ’ ὄλβιός τ’ εἶ, καθαρά τ’, οὐ νοσοῦντ’, ἔχεις | μέλαθρ’, ἐγὼ δὲ δυσσεβῆ καὶ δυστυχῆ, “You are prosperous, and you have a house that is pure, not diseased, | while mine is godless and unfortunate”.

    77 S. OT 1227-1230: Οἶμαι γὰρ οὔτ’ ἂν Ἴστρον οὔτε Φᾶσιν ἂν | νίψαι καθαρμῷ τήνδε τὴν στέγην, ὅσα | κεύθει, τὰ δ’ αὐτίκ’ εἰς τὸ φῶς φανεῖ κακὰ | ἑκόντα κοὐκ ἄκοντα, “I do not think that the Ister or the Phasis could | wash clean this house, such horrors | does it conceal, and some it will soon expose to the light | horrors willed and unwilled”.

    78 E.g. E. Cyc. 316-346.

    79 E. Cyc. 26, 30, 348, 378, 438.

    80 E. Ion 32-35

    81 Ion sees the temple of Apollo, in which he works as a servant, as his home. This becomes clear from a discussion between Creusa and Ion: “Kr. Do you live in this temple, or in a house? | Ion. The whole home of the god is also my home, wherever I may sleep”, Κρ. ναοῖσι δ’οἰκεῖς τοισίδ’ ἢ κατὰ στέγας; | Ιων: Ἅπαν θεοῦ μοι δῶμ’, ἵν’ ἂν λάβῃ μ’ ὕπνος, 314-315.

    82 E. Ion 105-106, 144-149.

    83 E. Ion 103-105, 112-127.

    84 E. Ion 154-180.

    85 Cf. e.g. Zacharia (2003), p. 13: “his concern for purity at any cost in a recurrent theme in the monody”; lee (1997), p. 170: “an obsession with ritual purity, both physical and verbal, is clear”; “Ion picks out with some pride the task regularly presented as the meanest of a slave’s duties.”

    86 As Lee (1997), ad loc. coolly remarked: “it is obvious that Ion’s is no ordinary broom.”

    87 Lee (1997), p. 37: “several scenes have been seen as amusing if not downright comical: … Ion’s earnest activity with arrows and broom…”

    88 E. Ion 150-153.

    89 The phrase is also interpreted as such in the commentaries/translations of Hijmans (1991) and Lee (1997).

    90 ἁγνός is regularly used in similar constructions (with ἀπό and gen.) to denote the absence of a corrupting/polluting influence, but ὅσιος never is. Moreover, evaluations of proper or improper sexual behaviour are not typically framed in terms of τὸ ὅσιον. The adjective ὅσιος used with positive argumentative orientation occasionally describes a prudent and modest sexual life that is not guided by excessive desires (E. IA 555, Simon; P. Oxy. 2432, fr. 36, subfr. 1, l. 6-14), but not complete abstinence. The antonym ἀνόσιος sometimes evaluates problematic behaviour relating to love, marriage and sex, but most of these examples describe a seriously disturbed relationship between parents and children (S. OC 946, 981, S. OT 1289, 1360, E. Hipp. 764), husband and wife (E. El. 600, 926) or guest and host (Hdt. 2.114-15, concerning Paris). The fact that these examples evaluate a serious problem with those relationships that most interest the gods seems to motivate the disqualification ἀνόσιος more than the sexual misconduct in itself. For examples in which ἀνόσιος describes problematic sexual behaviour outside of the customary relationship of man and wife: B. Dith. 3.21, E. El. 1261, E. Ion 1093.

    91 109-111: Ὡς γὰρ ἀμήτωρ ἀπάτωρ τε γεγὼς | τοὺς θρέψαντας | Φοίβου ναοὺς θεραπεύω.

    92 LSJ s.v. θεραπεύειν ΙΙ.

    93 136, 138: Φοῖβός μοι γενέτωρ πατήρ | … Τὸν δ’ὠφέλιμον ἐμοὶ πατέρος ὄνομα λέγω.

    94 181-183: Οἷς δ’ἔγκειμαι μόχθοις | Φοίβωι δουλεύσω κοὐ λήξω | Τοὺς βόσκοντας θεραπεύων.

    95 According to Lee (1997), p. 171, this theme is a ‘seal’ pressing a stamp on every strophe.

    96 Bruit zaidman – Schmitt Pantel (1992), p. 52; Cole (1992), p. 112-113. One factor, as Mat Carbon points out to me in a personal communication, is that priests normally would go home and would not live in the sanctuary, whereas Ion does not have a home outside of the sanctuary.

    Purity and Purification in the Ancient Greek World. Texts, Rituals, and Norms

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    Peels-Matthey, S. (2018). Moral Purity in the Athenian Theatre. In J.-M. Carbon & S. Peels-Matthey (éds.), Purity and Purification in the Ancient Greek World. Texts, Rituals, and Norms (1‑). Presses universitaires de Liège. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pulg.17986
    Peels-Matthey, Saskia. « Moral Purity in the Athenian Theatre ». In Purity and Purification in the Ancient Greek World. Texts, Rituals, and Norms, édité par Jan-Mathieu Carbon et Saskia Peels-Matthey. Liège: Presses universitaires de Liège, 2018. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pulg.17986.
    Peels-Matthey, Saskia. « Moral Purity in the Athenian Theatre ». Purity and Purification in the Ancient Greek World. Texts, Rituals, and Norms, édité par Jan-Mathieu Carbon et Saskia Peels-Matthey, Presses universitaires de Liège, 2018, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pulg.17986.

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    Carbon, J.-M., & Peels-Matthey, S. (éds.). (2018). Purity and Purification in the Ancient Greek World. Texts, Rituals, and Norms (1‑). Presses universitaires de Liège. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pulg.17936
    Carbon, Jan-Mathieu, et Saskia Peels-Matthey, éd. Purity and Purification in the Ancient Greek World. Texts, Rituals, and Norms. Liège: Presses universitaires de Liège, 2018. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pulg.17936.
    Carbon, Jan-Mathieu, et Saskia Peels-Matthey, éditeurs. Purity and Purification in the Ancient Greek World. Texts, Rituals, and Norms. Presses universitaires de Liège, 2018, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pulg.17936.
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