Truth in Pindar

Arum Park (Amherst College)

Scholarly discussion of truth in Pindar’s poetry generally focuses on the truth-telling rhetoric of the poet. As Louise Pratt has noted, Pindar and Bacchylides declare their poetic duty to speak the truth more often than their poetic predecessors (Pratt 1993: 115; cf. Bowra 1964: 33). This is unsurprising, for the genre of epinician requires the poet to convince his audience of his subject’s praiseworthiness (cf. Miller 1996: 41-59), and for the audience to be convinced, the poet must present a compelling, seemingly truthful case. A problem arises when one tries to understand what these poets mean when they speak of truth (aletheia). This paper examines Pindar’s conception of truth and how his differs from his poetic predecessors’.

Scholars generally agree as to what aletheia does not mean: aletheia does not denote “non-fiction” or “fact,” nor, as Detienne has pointed out, is “truth” in ancient Greek poetry always equivalent to “veracity” (Detienne 1967: 22ff.). What aletheia does mean is a matter of some debate. There has been much ado over the famous etymology of aletheia advanced by Heidegger, which posits a derivation of aletheia from lethe. Detienne (1967), Snell (1975), and Cole (1983), among others, have each argued for their nuanced variations of the definition of aletheia suggested by its etymology, e.g., “lack of concealment,” “un-forgetting,” “unforgottenness.” Their respective contributions all assume that the salient aspect of truth is its verbal manifestation, an assumption that is appropriate for the poetry of Homer and Hesiod, whose uses of aletheia and its adjectival cognates generally demonstrate an understanding of truth as something spoken or otherwise verbally communicated.

Pindar, however, conceives of truth differently. While he plays on the shared root between aletheia and lethe in Olympian 10 (γλυκὺ γὰρ αὐτῷ μέλος ὀφείλων ἐπιλέλαθ’· ὦ Μοῖσ’, ἀλλὰ σὺ καὶ θυγάτηρ | Ἀλάθεια Διός, 3-4), his conception of aletheia here and elsewhere transcends its etymological derivation and its verbal representation. For Pindar, truth is not merely an abstraction denoting the opposite of forgetting or concealment, but rather an active divinity who is to take a key role in the shaping of the poem and the poet’s reputation. The poet does not speak the truth; instead, the truth will speak through the poet. Pindar’s invocations to truth in Olympian 10 and Fragment 205, where aletheia is similarly personified (Ἀρχὰ μεγάλας ἀρετᾶς, | ὤνασσ’ Ἀλάθεια, μὴ πταίσῃς ἐμάν | σύνθεσιν τραχεῖ ποτὶ ψεύδει), demonstrate his innovative conception of truth. In the first place, the mere fact of truth’s personification is unusual; of Pindar’s predecessors and contemporaries, only Parmenides also personifies aletheia. Furthermore, the nature of Pindar’s personification of aletheia is noteworthy, for his Truth is a divinity descended from Zeus and endowed with agency. Parmenides’ Aletheia, by contrast, seems to be a passive abstraction with no divine pedigree.

In this paper, I will briefly explore the history of aletheia in Greek poetry as compared to aletheia in Pindar. I will then use the personifications of aletheia in Pindar’s Olympian 10 and Fragment 205 as a point of departure for my study of truth in Pindar.