From Shepherding Words to Sacrificing Paeans:
Hymns Between Sacrificial Context and Imagery

Monica Signoretti (Hollins University)

The connection between sacrificial practice and the hymns that constitute an integral part of it has received little attention.  Only seldom have hymns been analyzed by focusing specifically on those features that point to the sacrificial context in which they were performed.

In this paper, I am arguing that far from being a simple complement to the offering of the sacrificial animal, the hymn pronounced in connection with the sacrifice is perceived and conceptualized by its very author as a form of sacrifice in its own right.

The possibility of construing a hymn as a sacrificial victim is brought to light in an episode having for a protagonist none other than Pindar.  On his way to the Delphic sanctuary, when asked what he was going to sacrifice, Pindar answered: “A paean.”  Despite the justified doubts surrounding the authenticity of this episode preserved solely by late commentators and most likely spurious, the representation of a hymn as a sacrificial animal is meaningful and, most importantly, not new.

Other texts establish a connection between these compositions and sacrifice: frequently the pledge of an offering to the gods in exchange for help entails the promise of both animal sacrifices and hymns.  Sometimes only sacrifices are promised just as, at times, only hymns are mentioned.  Yet, regardless of the type of the offering, a victim or a hymn, the choice of the one over the other does not seem to affect in any way the relationship established between men and gods, but both are equally effective in establishing such relationship. 

More significantly, the connection between animal sacrifice and hymn is often made by the hymns themselves.  Once more in Pindar’s words, the poet’s ability of phrasing his hymn is described as his skill of “shepherding words” (Ol. 11, vv. 8-9).  In turn, the imagery of animal sacrifice can be projected onto the sections of a composition, thus performing what has been called by Jasper Svenbro the “cut of poetry.”  Centuries after Pindar, Callimachus will still be playing with the same imagery when affirming that aoidoi always sacrifice without producing any smoke (fr. 494).