Mnemosyne in Oral Literature

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American Philological Association

Mnemosyne in Oral LiteratureAuthor(s): James A. NotopoulosSource: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 69 (1938),pp. 465-493Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/283194 .Accessed: 24/04/2011 05:30

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Mnemosyne in Oral Literature

XXVI.-Mnemosyne in Oral Literature

JAMES A. NOTOPOULOS

TRINITY COLLEGE

The work of the late Milman Parry, on Homer, has con-tributed much to an understanding of the differences in litera-tures created by the spoken rather than the written word.

Approaching the Homeric poems as oral poetry he proceededon the principle of Aristarchus of getting the solution fromthe text, v K trS XMecEs Lcns. Using form as the clue to func-

tion, and style as establishing the character of thought, hereconstructed the oral basis of the Homeric poems. In aseries of brilliant papers 1 he has laid a new foundation for

the study of Homer. It is time now to apply the results ofhis work to certain problems which are implicit in the oralliterature of the Greeks. Among these is the importance of

Mnemosyne.When Greek oral literature was committed to writing we

find embedded in it the mention of Mnemosyne, which is the

personification of an important and vital force in oral com-

position. Its importance is evident in the prominent placeit occupies in early Greek theology. Hesiod tells us thatEarth lay with Heaven, and from this primaeval union wereborn Theia, Rhea, Themis, and Mnemosyne.2 These Titans,says Rose, "are very ancient figures, little worshipped any-where in historical Greece, and belonging to a past so remotethat the earliest Greeks of whose opinions we have any certain

knowledge saw them surrounded with a haze of extreme

antiquity." 3 The inclusion of Mnemosyne as one of the most1For a bibliography cf. H. Levin, " Portrait of a Homeric Scholar," Classical

Journal xxxII (1937), 266.2 Theogony 45f.3 H. J. Rose, Handbook of Greek Mythology (New York, E. P. Dutton, 1929),

21.

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ancient deities is evidence of the importance in which this

function was held by the earliest Greeks. But the inclusionof Mnemosyne among the Titans is puzzling. " Mnemosyne,"says Rose, "is a pure abstraction, Memory personified, and

clearly has no business among the Titans proper." 4 It is

evident, however, that this legend preserves the primaevalimportance of memory among pre-literate Greeks, and, rightlyor wrongly, she is included among the Titans, the first gen-eration of the

theogonyof Earth and Heaven. Hesiod, stand-

ing at the threshold of the post-heroic age, has preserved forus a legend which reveals the importance of Memory amongoral peoples. Folk-memory has preserved in this legend theonce supreme importance of a divinity who sank into a minorcult 5 with the advent of written literature.

Supplementing Hesiod on the question of the importance of

memory in the oral literature of the early Greeks is the evi-

dence of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, dated not later thanthe seventh century.6 When Hermes discovered the lyre, he

sang the story of the immortal gods, and in his song he honored

Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses, first among the gods,for, says the poem significantly, "the son of Maia was of her

following." 7 Then follow the rest of the gods in the orderof their age, thus revealing the first rank that Mnemosyne

occupied as a goddess in the theology of oral peoples. Thefurther we go into the development of written literature, theless important Mnemosyne becomes as the written word tri-

umphed over memory and the spoken word. But even so,the written literature from the sixth century on reflects the

part that memory once played in oral poetry, now no longera living force but a convention which poets invoke as a prelude.

In Solon's time Memory and the Muses were crystallized into4 Op. cit. (see note 3), 21.6 Cf. I.G. II.2 4692; Schol. Oedipus Col. 100.6 T. W. Allen, W. R. Halliday, E. E. Sikes, The Homeric Hymns2 (Oxford,

Clarendon Press, 1936), 276.7Hymn to Hermes 429; cf. Pap. Lond. 46.115.

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an elegiac formula:

Mvtr.ioarbvrls alZvpos OXviArlov &yXa&EvaMooaaL IHLepl?8E, XV7TLOOL3VXOCVC.

Terpander echoes it in a different metrical form:

2TrEv8w&/iv ras Mvalias

7ratatv Mcboaas 9 . .

The poet in the fifth and fourth centuries still kept up theconvention. Euripides in Hercules Furens has the poet singof Memory:

Tn L yEpwv aot-

6os KeXaSet Mvag,ooIavav 10

alluding to the old oral poet, the yepwov of Homeric poetry,who exercised his craft by means of memory. This asso-

ciation of the poet with Memory had already in the fourthcentury become a commonplace, as Plato's remark reveals:KaOTirep ol rTOlrat, 5co/uaL apx6ouevos rjs &Sl'yao'Ws Mobvas re Kal

Mv77Loaivvf7v 7rLKaXEiToeC0.11

All these references to Mnemosyne in the written literatureof Greece are echoes of a once significant force in an oralliterature. Memory in written literature is essentially based

on the written word, whereas for the oral poet it was entirelyassociated with the spoken word. The Iliad and the Odyssey,unlike the Aeneid, are not products of written literature, butof an age in which the spoken word was the basis of creation.Man in primitive Greek society was, as Marcel Jousse pointsout in his penetrating book on Le Style Oral, a "mnemo-technician." The dactylic hexameter is the product of oral

Solon 13 (Poetae lyrici Graeci,4 ed. T. Bergk [Leipzig, Teubner, 1882]);cf. G. Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca (Berlin, G. Reimer, 1878), 789; A. Plassart,"Inscriptions de Thespies," Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique L (1926),403.

9Terpander No. 3 (Bergk).10Hercules Furens 679.1 Euthydemus 275 d; cf. Pindar 01. vmII.74.

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James A. Notopoulos

literature; it is a mnemotechnique made by "l'utilisation

consciente et rationnelle des lois automatiques et profondesde la memoire. . .. pour aider la memoire du Recitateur." 12

Differing entirely from literature which was first composedwith the written word and then recited, oral literature isbased on a spontaneous and natural creation in which the

poet composed orally by means of formulas and fixed patterns,all of which were based on memory.

To understand properly the nature and function of Mnemos-

yne in the technique of oral poetry we must, at the outset,differentiate the various uses which memory might have inoral poetry. From the oral poet, as we see him in Homer, welearn that one of the functions of the oral poet was to per-petuate in memory the icXca vpcsv 13; it was the poet's taskto conserve living experiences and transmit them to posterity.This might be called the use of memory as an end and is

illustrated in the picture of Demodocus.14 In the case oforal poetry the only way to perpetuate the KXea &avp&vc as

song, which could not be attached to a permanent record like

writing, but could only achieve its object by constant repeti-tion. It is in this sense that immortality in oral poetry de-

pended upon constant repetition. Plato could admirably beused to illustrate this point in epic poetry when he discussesthe

part memory playsin

immortality:XA0

yap' T7rLo-T7r

0o0os, /EEXEr c Trav fYroLOvaTa &LVTL nrS aTrLo-qLs jpJvv cr'EL TrqV

e7rLarTfl,Plv.15 f we substitute recitation by the oral poet, in

the place of lcEXEr?i, e have an insight into the relation of

memory to immortality in epic poetry.The use of memory as an end is furthermore connected

with utility as well as immortality. This accounts for thefact that oral literature took as its subject so much other

12 Marcel Jousse, Le Style Oral rythmique et mnemotechnique hez les Verbo-moteurs (Paris, G. Beauchesne, 1925), 191.

13Homer Iliad Ix.524f.14 Cf. Pindar Nem. I.12, and Herodotus I.1 for a similar reflection in written

literature.15Symposium 208a.

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non-poetic material like genealogies, chronologies, laws, etc.16

The association of utility and memory in oral literature iswell illustrated in the study that Prof. J. L. Myres has madeof Folk-memory.17 With consummate skill he has shown thecoherent and trustworthy foundation of genealogies preservedin folk-memory, and illustrated it with examples from Ice-andic and Maori history. This organic relation of utilitywith memory is observed by Plutarch in The Oracles at Delphi:"there is nothing in poetry more serviceable to speech thanthat the ideas communicated, by being bound up and inter-woven with verse, are better remembered and kept firmly inmind. Men in those days had to have a memory for manythings." 18 The oral poet as a mnemotechnician preservedthe useful by binding it in verse, by forging a metrical patternwhich facilitated and guarded against mistake the informationto be preserved.'9 Memory therefore is equally important in

conserving the useful as well as perpetuating the immortal inoral literature; the poet is the incarnate book of oral peoples,a fact which not only explains the existence of what from ourmodern point of view seems non-poetic in their work, but alsoaccounts in part for the paratactic nature of the poetic formof oral poetry and literature.20

But of far greater importance in oral poetry is the use of

memory as a means in the process of creation. The part thatmemory plays in the creative process of oral literature shows

memory to be of two kinds, static and creative.21 An example16M. Jousse, op. cit. (see note 12), 126-131; Aristotle, Problems xix.28;

Plato Laws 793a; Apollodorus XpovLK&, ie Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker,ed. F. Jacoby (Berlin, Weidmann, 1929), Part 2. B. 1025-1044.

17J. L. Myres, Who Were the Greeks? (Berkeley, University of California,1936), 291-366; cf. J. L. Myres, "Folk-Memory," Folk-Lore xxxvI (1926), 12-34.

18Plutarch Moralia 407F (in Loeb Cl. Lib.).

19Cf. M. Jousse, op. cit. (see note 12), 191.20 Cf. B. A. Van Groningen, Paratactische compositie in de ondste Griekscheliteratur (Amsterdam, Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1937); cf.the review by J. Tate in Cl. Rev. LI (1937), 174-5.

21Cf. Bergson's distinction between memory which imagines and memorywhich repeats. H. Bergson, Matter and Memory (London, S. Sonnenschein& Co., 1911).

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James A. Notopoulos

of memory as a static factor in oral poetry is given by Parry:

"an oral poetry practiced by guilds of singers with mastersand apprentices would tend to a more faithful keeping of

poems which had won fame, and that one singer might winsuch a name that his disciples would find their profit in keep-ing his poetry as nearly without change as they could; butthen they are no longer singers but rhapsodes, their task isnot of creation."22 If, for example, Homer were the bestoral poet, the guild of the Homeridae would memorize hisversion of the poems and perpetuate them by constant repeti-tion. They would be rhapsodes, and an example in laterwritten literature is the rhapsode in the Ion of Plato, whomemorized Homer by heart from a written text. In the

period of oral poetry, however, the rhapsode would memorizeit from an oral version which was to be found only in the ibrEa

'rrepoevra of the singers.

This use of memory, however, is retentive rather thancreative. The study of the composition of oral poetry,23 asit survives today in Jugoslavia, has thrown considerable lighton the problems of Homeric composition of oral poetry andthe part that memory plays in it. The work of Krauss,Murko, and Parry on this problem has shown that the creativer61e that memory plays in oral composition is integrally con-nected with the formula of the traditional diction of oral

poetry; this Parry studied in detail in Homer, both as to itsform and function.

Oral poetry of all nations, it has been shown,24 s essentially22M. Parry, "Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making," II,

Harvard Studies in Classical Philology XLIII (1932), 16, 17.23F. S. Krauss, Slavische Volkforschungen (Leipzig, W. Heims, 1908); M.

Murko, La poesie populaire ipique en Yugoslavie au debut du XX6 siecle (Paris,Champion, 1929); H. M. and N. K. Chadwick, The Growth of Literature (Cam-bridge, At the University Press, 1936), ii.299-456.

24 Cf. Jousse, op. cit. (see note 12), 113; Parry, "Studies in the Epic Tech-

nique of Oral Verse-Making," I, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology XLI

(1930), 77, 78; H. M. and N. K. Chadwick, op. cit. (see note 23), 1.22, 44, 62,

564; T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (New York, Doubleday, Doran& Co., 1935), 125, 278-9.

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composed of fixed, stereotyped cliches or formulas, ranging

all the way from phrases of fixed epithet to whole lines andeven whole passages. The outstanding feature of the formulain epic poetry is its repetition, the cause of which was littleunderstood until recently when its importance in Homericoral composition was shown by Parry. Unlike the poet ofwritten literature who composes with pen and paper, and isnot bound by the necessity of time required in the composi-tion, the oral poet must

composewith the

spokenword, must

do so spontaneously and consecutively. He has thereforecertain problems arising in oral composition which do notarise in written composition. Most pressing of these is theneed of "word-groups all made to fit his verse and tell whathe has to tell. In composing he will do no more than puttogether for his needs phrases which he has often heard orused himself, and which, grouping themselves in accordance

with a fixed pattern of thought, come naturally to make thesentence and the verse." 25 By means of these ready-madeand traditional word-groups he is able to compose orally,filling in a verse or part of a verse with one of these formulaswhich leave him time to think of the next verse. Their re-currence is necessary if oral composition is to take place, forwithout them the oral poet would falter in the midst of his

composition;his

creation, unlike that of the poet of writtenliterature, involves not the creation of new phrases but ratherthe use of traditional phrases.

The frequency and number of these formulas illustrate thecreative function of memory in oral composition. One canreadily see the amount of memory required before one couldcreate orally, if he multiplies the case of the single formula, asParry says, "by all these which are to be found in the twopoems, and which require the 250 pages of Schmidt's Parallel-Homer for their listing." 26 Parry computes 25,000 or 26,000

26Parry, op. cit. (see note 24), 1.77. For examples of how the poet makesuse of these word-groups in oral composition cf. pp. 85-86.

26 Parry, ibid., 89.

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repetitions in Homer's 27,853 or so verses.27 Such a survey

shows that the poet could not exercise his craft withoutmemory. The verse is created on the basis of a vast complexsystem of formulas which the poet had to memorize as partof his craft. Before he could compose he had to memorizea vast number of word-groups which would serve as the basisof his improvisation. Without keeping in memory all theseformulas, which are the oral diction out of which his poetryis made, no oral poetry could be possible. Memory is themeans by which the poet creates orally. It is a creativefactor in the very process of oral creation; it is an inherent

part of it and without it no poet could create. As may beseen there is no place for passive memory in this technique,for the formulas vary in length and are fused together in the

very heat of oral recitation; like the notes of the scale they are

constantly used in new context. It is in this sense that

Mnemosyne is at the basis of oral composition; without mem-ory the poet could not retain the vast and complex formulas,groups, and systems which he needed to formulate his verses.For the poet of the hexameter, thought was synonymous with

memory, for he could only think out his lines on the basis ofmemorized formulas. The very elasticity of memory essentialto the expression of thought by the poet is witness to itscreative character. For

thoughtand

memoryare so close

in the process of composition that etymologically Mootca isconnected with Mnemosyne,28 Moo aL, i.e. * Movaat, the Re-

27 Parry, ibid., 90.28 Memory not only extends to word-groups, but also to entire scenes.

Walter Arend in his book Die Typischen Scenen bei Homer (Berlin, Weidmann,1933) has analyzed the Homeric poems and shown that certain actions arerepeated with the same details and words. Instances of such typical scenesare arrival, sacrifice, journey by land or sea, arming, dressing, etc. Though

Arend does not recognize the implications of his analysis, Parry has pointedout that these type schemes show the schematization of Homer's composition.As in the formula the poet in his apprenticeship to the older singer retained inhis memory ways to develop action, so that memory is at the basis of the oraltechnique ranging from noun-epithet formulas to manner of developing action.Cf. Parry's review, Class. Phil. xxxi (1936), 357-60.

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minders.29 It is not unreasonable then to think that though

inspiration came from the Muses, behind inspiration stoodMnemosyne, the mother of the Muses, who was intimatelyconnected with oral creation.

The oral poet in the absence of the written text learned hiscraft and material through the ?rea 7rrepoevra. The amazingmemory of a Jugoslav guslar throws light on the ability of anoral poet to recite a poem of the length of the Iliad or Odyssey.Krauss in studying the mnemonic faculty of the Jugoslavguslars reports that a guslar named Milovan could recite

40,000 lines in a row, and that he was only ordinary; popularopinion credits the good guslar with knowing from memory30,000 to even 100,000 verses.30 In view of this modern parallelin an oral society it is not impossible to assign the Iliad or the

Odyssey to a single oral poet. For memory was the peculiarfaculty and province of the oral poet; he could no more do

without memory than we, the children of the written word,can do without books. By memorizing the vast and com-

plicated systems of formulaic diction the poet could call uponhis memory not only for the exact phrase to fill out a particularverse, but also for the creation of the general pattern of the

poem. Memory was not only the end for which the poetstrove, but was also the creative factor of the means in his

inspiration.Without

her,oral

compositionwas

impossible.As the foundation of the technique of oral poetry, Mnemosynewas rightly invoked as "mother of the Muses." 31

29 Cf. G. Curtius, Principles of Greek Etymology5, trans. by Wilkins and

England (London, Murray, 1886), 1.377; Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,Glaube der Hellenen (Berlin, Weidmann, 1931), 1.251.

30Jousse, op. cit. (see note 12), 113, 114.31Evidence in written literature of the importance of memory as a creative

factor in oral literature is preserved in a tradition recorded by Pausanias

(Ix.29.2) which states that the Heliconian muses are three in number: MeXkr7),Mv'j,l, 'AOLtr. This religious tradition throws light on the relation of Memoryas a force in poetry (cf. Homer's technique of personification of a force withoutthat force necessarily being a regular god in theology, Kvboryos, KOp, liad xvIII.535). In this tradition memory is personification of a factor in oral poetry; sheis here identified directly with the poetic process. Though different from the

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James A. Notopoulos

II

The Homeric poems were not essentially changed in char-acter with their commitment to writing. Though severalcenturies may have elapsed from the date of their oral com-

position to that of their commitment to writing, the intimateconnection of memory with oral composition conserved the

poems through this period with little change in their essentialoral features.32 Their form still betrays the characteristicsof oral literature. With the change of the method of com-

position from a spontaneous natural oral style to a written

composition Mnemosyne lost her function. Written litera-ture preserves her in an inherited theology; poets at thethreshold of the transition still begin their poetry with aninvocation to Mnemosyne as once the oral poet did, but nowit is a mere convention. Thucydides, however, gives evidencethat folk-memory was still a force in his day; he mentions an

oral tradition still alive among the Peloponnesians: XyovaL6b KaOl ot r&d7a0ecTaTa rIEXorovvroofslv vYtpr Tap& Trv 7rpTrEpo v

&6&E'YE'ivoL. . .33 Here we have an echo of the strong rootsof folk-memory even at an advanced literary age. The accu-

racy of such folk-memory with regard to genealogies, as

Myres has proven, merits the judgment of ra4cao-rara by the

Hesiodic tradition it reflects essentially the same emphasis which oral poetry

placedon

memory.The theological expression of a vital force in the life of

the oral peoples is consonant with the personification processes of the primitivemind. The non-metaphorical expression of this important force is found in theHomeric vocabulary where besides the retentive connotation of the verb

,ut/L,VjaKCWe have an echo of its creative force in the imperative up.i'.lvro whichmeans to take thought for something, to consider, think, where an active mental

process is evolved. When Circe tells Odysseus uvffretL e ae Kal Osos VTOSrOdysseyxii.38), we have an echo of the oral invocation of the poet to the muses for in-

spiration, which in his case involved the proper functioning of the memory with

respect to formulas.

32 Pausanias vii.26.6; cf. J. L. Myres, op. cit. (see note 17), 100; Parry,op. cit. (see note 24), I.144f. For the tendency to push the introduction ofletters to Greece after 1000 B.C. see Rhys Carpenter, "The Antiquity of theGreek Alphabet," A.J.A. xxxvII (1933), 8-29.

33Thucydides 1.9; cf. the officials called iuvilj.oves n M. Tod, Greek Historical

Inscriptions (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1933), No. 25, who seem to be a sur-

vival from the oral tradition.

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historian. Though folk-memory persisted, the introduction

of letters entirely changed the method of composition andwith this change Mnemosyne lost her vitality as a force inliterature. The written word, as it became supreme, nar-cotized memory.

The transition, however, from oral to written literature didnot come about without a struggle. A prTpa of Lycurgusforbade the putting of the laws into writing.34 In Caesar'sDe Bello Gallico we have a

glimpseof the

strugglewhich must

have been waged against the encroachment of the writtenword upon the spoken word. The Druids, he reports, "learnby heart a great number of verses, . . . and they do not thinkit proper to commit these utterances to writing, although inalmost all other accounts they make use of Greek letters. Ibelieve they have adopted the practice for two reasons-that they do not wish the rule to become common property,nor those who learn the rule to rely on writing and so neglectthe cultivation of the memory, and, in fact, it does usuallyhappen that the assistance of writing tends to relax thediligence of the student and the action of the memory." 35This commentary of Caesar on the Druid opposition to lettersand Lycurgus' law forbidding the commitment of his lawsinto writing reflect the persistence of the oral tradition andthe

premium an oral society puts on memory. The dislikefor the written word, it is to be noted, is accounted for in partby the weakening effect it had upon memory which wasprized highly among oral peoples.36

34Plutarch Life of Lycurgus xmII; for the oral character of laws cf. S. H.Butcher, "The Written and the Spoken Word," Some Aspects of the GreekGenius3 (London, Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1904), 183-187.

35Caesar De Bello Gallico vi.14 (in Loeb Cl. Lib.); cf. Quint. Inst. xi.2.9, citedby W. H. Thompson in his edition of Phaedrus of Plato (London, Whittaker &Co., 1868), 136. For oral literature in the sacred literature of India cf. Chad-wick, op. cit. (see note 23), II.603-625.

36 J. L. Myres, "Folk-Memory," Folk-Lore xxxvII (1926), 234: "In mediaevaland modern history, this kind of folk-memory for events does not count formuch, all the principal occurrences being established by contemporary docu-ments, official and otherwise . . . This, however, while testifying to the

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James A. Notopoulos

The existence of this prejudice against the encroachment of

the written word is furthermore reflected in the legend of the'culture hero' Prometheus, who brought benefits to mankindand was punished by Zeus. Among the gifts which he gave tomankind were: "the combining of letters, creative mother ofthe Muses' arts, wherewith to hold all things in memory " (,uvi-I,-LV ra&vTrv, ,louovaoUrop' py'avyrv).37 Prometheus' gift of letterswherewith to hold all things in memory is a radical and rather

oppositeview to that of the conservative members of oral

society. Here we see the clash between the two views of

early peoples on letters, the conservative element of the oral

society maintaining that it destroys memory, while the pro-gressive element maintained that it would conserve ratherthan destroy memory. This clash is echoed furthermore inthe story of Theuth and Thamus in Plato's Phaedrus. Thosewho do not understand the background of oral literature look

upon the story as an invention of Plato, but it is evident thatit is in its essence a genuine tale preserved in folk-memory,

harking back to a time in oral society when the issue of the

written word vs. the spoken word was as real and living as it

was at the time of Lycurgus and among the Druids in the

first century B.C. Theuth is a culture hero like Prometheus;he discovers number, reckoning, geometry, and letters. Upon

his discovery of letters he submitted them to King Thamussaying: "This invention, O king, will make the Egyptianswiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of

memory and wisdom that I have discovered" (Uvt77,urs e yap

superior efficiency of written records, illustrates also their disastrous by-effect-from the folklore point of view-in superseding the practice of oral tradition,as well as the data which it may conserve. In particular, the popular use ofcalendars and diaries, and of consecutive numeration of the years, instead of

reckoning by reigns, priesthoods, or the generations of family history, transfersall this kind of folk-memory from what may be described as its natural contentor background to an artificial and mechanical scheme." For the naturalnessof oral poetry cf. M. Parry, "Whole Formulaic Verses in Greek and South-

slavic Heroic Song," T.A.P.A. LXIV 1933), 181.37Aeschylus Prometheus Bound 461 (in Loeb. Cl. Lib.).

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Kal ao4-as 4aptpaKov bvpeiOr).3s This story represents the same

view as Prometheus. In the 'culture heroes', like Prometheusand Theuth, we have the dramatic representation of a groupin early peoples who saw in writing an aid to memory; in Zeusand Thamus, on the other hand, we have the dramatic expres-sion of the conservative, traditional group of oral societywhich, like the Druids, believed that letters might cause theweakening of memory which was of momentous importanceto oral

peoples.In the tale of the

EgyptianTheuth s9 we

have another echo of an important struggle that was carriedon, analogous to our modern struggle of the hand made vs.machine made. This echo is preserved in the form of a legendwhich Plato dramatized and adapted to his philosophic pur-poses. The opposition to letters is rationalized by KingThamus as follows: "Most ingenious Theuth, one man has theability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their useful-

ness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; andnow you, who are the father of letters, have been led by youraffection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that whichthey really possess. For this invention will produce forget-fulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because theywill not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, pro-duced by external characters which are no part of themselves,will

discourage the use of their own memory within them.You have invented an elixir (4apmuaKov) ot of memory, but ofreminding (tvroituvjIcos)." 40

3s Phaedrus 274c (in Loeb Cl. Lib.); cf. Philebus 18a; Euripides Palamedesfrg. 582 (Nauck): Xrnlts O4&p/AaK'; . Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker3 Berlin,Weidmann, 1912), II, Dialex. 9 (648, 14 f): ikytorrov Kal K&dXXLo-roTV Ebpr7Eaiuval.a Kat es 7ravra xpjia,CjUov; cf. A. E. Taylor, Varia Socratica (Oxford, J. Parker& Co., 1911), 127.

39For the historicity and place of Theuth cf. G. Maspero, Popular Storiesof Ancient Egypt (London, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1915), LI (Int.), 20, 31, 129, 150.

40Phaedrus 274e-275a (in Loeb Cl. Lib.). Note the aptness of the word7r6ib,ur)ots o distinguish memory through letters from the memory of oral lit-

erature; cf. S. H. Butcher, op. cit. (see note 34), 188, n. 2. For Plato's aware-ness of the oral tradition in prehistoric times cf. Timaeus 23c and Laws 886c,and for the natural association of memory with childhood cf. Timaeus 26b.

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These echoes of the struggle that took place in the transition

period between oral and written literature, as preserved inPlato's dramatic form, are the only context in which we can

hope to understand the opposition of the spoken vs. the writtenword in Plato's philosophy. It will be seen that Plato's oppo-sition to books and his championing of the spoken word, whichis integrally connected with memory in oral literature, is nota new element but is the reappearance in Plato's philosophyof the old

strugglebetween memory and letters. The memory

which Plato advocates, it will be seen, is not the memory ofthe written word, which is simply a static and retentive mem-

ory, but the creative memory of the oral literature which isvital and synonymous with thinking itself. Plato's oppositionto the written word is a philosophic analysis of the primitivedislike of the written word, which was a lifeless thing comparedto the spoken word, as exemplified in the natural, spontaneous

and vivid tonality of oral composition. Plato's thought, itwill be shown, is based on the context of oral literature, andhe shares the belief with all oral peoples that the spoken wordis closer to the heart of philosophy than lifeless books whichare removed from reality by their mechanical and symbolicnature. To Plato, who ever seeks to grasp the original, philos-ophy can only be practiced in an oral context where the dialec-

tician like the oral poet composeswith the aid of

memoryalone.

Plato's belief that the written word is only an image of the

living and breathing word of the philosopher 41 is, as in oral

literature, inevitably bound up with memory. In the contextof oral literature memory is equally a creative factor in dia-

lectic. Memory which plays such a great part in Plato's

philosophy is a reappearance in philosophy of the vital r6le

it once had in the creation of oral epic poetry. Plato recog-nizes that memory and the spoken word are interrelated.Furthermore his association of memory and the spoken word

in the Phaedrus is bound up with his conviction that philosophyshould be based upon those forces which make for vitality,

41 Phaedrus 276a.

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naturalness and spontaneity in human expression. The writ-

ten word is, like the rhapsodists' use of memory, simplyretentive of what was created. The oral poet and philosophermake use of memory as a creative factor.

That Plato is not creating something new in his use of

memory and his emphasis on the spoken word is evident fromthe study of the part memory plays in Greek philosophy.With the introduction of writing memory becomes a mere con-vention in literature; it was kept most alive in folk-memory,religion,42 and philosophy where it continued to keep its vi-

tality. It first appears in our evidence in Pythagoreanism.Pythagoras, as Burnet has shown,43 preferred the spoken wordand did not commit his thought to writing. "It was not,"he says, "till Alexandrian times that any one ventured to

forge books in his name. The writings ascribed to the firstPythagoreans were also forgeries of the same period." Ven-

eration for the spoken word of the Master, avros Nqa, and thestory of Hippasus' death for revealing secrets point to a strongoral tradition in Pythagoreanism. Among the followers ofPythagoras the exercise of memory (Auv/un aOKeiv) 44 was an

important duty. The importance of memory in the Pytha-gorean thought and way of life is preserved in Iamblichus' Lifeof Pythagoras,45 where we are told that the Pythagoreans calledtheir

philosophy'AKobugtara, r r-Tov KovaoUaTLKcuv

tXoaokla,thus

showing the importance in which the spoken word was heldby the school. Transmission was oral, as in the case of theDruids, and this was not because of the absence of letters butrather because of their profound conviction of the superiorityof the spoken over the written word. So deep was theirveneration for the spoken word and its handmaiden memory,that Pythagorean teachings, as Burnet has shown,46 were not

42 Cf. Plutarch Moralia 397c, 402d; Tacitus Annales 11.54.43J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy4 (London, A. & C. Black, Ltd., 1930),

92.44Diogenes Laertius vIII.22.45Iambl. V. P. 82, in Diels, op. cit. (see note 38), ii.280.4, p. 358.46J. Burnet, op. cit. (see note 43), 277-284.

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committed to writing till later. This non-existence of written

Pythagorean literature which gave rise in later ages to thefiction of Pythagorean silence,47 reveals the extent to whichthe oral tradition survived even as late as the fifth century.Behind this phenomenon we see how important the practiceof memory was in this oral society. Iamblichus preserves a

picture of the ritual of mnemonics which reminds us of themonastic ideals of the Middle Ages: 'ovro 6e ~ev KaTreXELV Ka

bLaoa'E evTv .vrJ'7 ra&vra 'TO. aa-Kog.evua e Kal 4pal6oieva, Kcal teXPToro v vaKeva'eaOcu raS re6cVraiELs Kal ras aKcpoaoaeLs, ueXpL rov

vvarTaL rapascxeaOaL rT LCavOavov Kal bCa/luvtovevov, orL EKeLVO a(TLV,

6OeLyLVWCa'KeLV KaCL v Cp yvw77Uv c(vXaoa'ELv. TrLI. oOv yovv ao(6apa rl)v

IAv/fjl V Kal TroXX\v aar-rs irOLOuvro wyV4vaaC v TE Kal er7LAXeLav ....

IIvOa'ypeLos v)p ov Trporepov K ris KOLiTrs vIaTaro 0 ra xOes yev6ooeva

avaCl?vrl?aOel7. . otvv yap I/eL'OV rpos E7rtLor'71/Al aCLi/lreLplav Kal

>p6vrlaLv Trov 8vaaOaL pvr1ijuoveVeLv.48 he importance in which

memory was held is shown not only in their oral transmissionand training but also in their philosophy. Memory was repre-sented by the number Ten which was considered the most

perfect number,49 and the music of the spheres revolving in

unison was called Mvt71oaovv7.5?The importance of Memory in Pythagoreanism is to be

connected with the Orphic religious background of its thought.

The Orphics,like the Druids of whom Caesar

speaks, pre-served the secrets and doctrines of the sect orally.51 Thecardinal doctrine of Orphism and Pythagoreanism, the trans-

migration of souls, was intimately bound up with memorywhich was the link between this world and the life after death.

Pythagoras is said to have remembered having been Euphorbus

47A. E. Taylor, Aristotle and His Predecessors (Chicago, The Open Court

Publishing Co., 1927), 39, n. 1; cf. Olympiodorus in Platonis Phaedonem

Commentaria A 1.13; Isocrates Bousiris 28.48 Iambl. V. P. 164-6 in Diels, op. cit. (see note 38), ii.282, p. 361-2.49Diels, op. cit., 1.236.13, p. 305; 235.33, p. 303.50 Porphyry Vita Pythagorae 131.1 Cf. 'Iepol A6oyo; 0. Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta (Berlin, Weidmann,

1923), 140f.

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in the Trojan war, as well as other characters, and his soul is

said to have received from Hermes the gift of rememberingall the plants and animals in which it had resided.52 On thethin gold plates which were discovered at Thurii were foundOrphic verses which though of late date refer back to the fifth

century or earlier.53 In these verses we get a picture of thehalls of Hades wherein is a divine fountain of Memory fromwhich any one may drink who says he is the child of Heavenand Earth.54 In the oracle of Trophonius in Lebadeia,55Mnemosyne was the name of one of the two springs in thecavern of Trophonius, the other being called Lethe. The

symbolic significance of the fountain of Lethe of which onedrank in order to forget all other matters, and the fountainof Mnemosyne of which one drank in order to remember whatwas revealed by the oracle, shows the extent to which theoral tradition with its stress on memory survived not only in

philosophy but in religion as well.Oral literature persisted in both Pythagoreanism and Or-

phism, and in their doctrines Memory was enshrined as a god-dess of great importance. The emphasis on the spoken wordand the vitality of memory in these systems show that thereis no distinct break in the fortleben of oral literature in Greece.The oral tradition though overshadowed by written literaturein the sixth and fifth centuries continues to be a vital force in

Orphism and Pythagoreanism. Mnemosyne and the spokenword survived in the &Kobvarara nd mnemonics of the latterand in the use of oral tradition in oracles and the Mysteries.It is from these that Plato received as a heritage the signifi-cance and importance of the spoken word and memory. Andas he did in the case of much that he received from traditionPlato made the spoken word and memory alive and vital

again, adding new significance and depth to their meaning.62 Diels, op. cit., 1.24.20, p. 30.63W. C. K. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion (London, Methuen & Co.,

1935), 172.64 Kern, op. cit. (see note 51), 32a, p. 105; cf. 297c 2, p. 310.66Pausanias xx.39.8, 13; cf. Pindar Isth. vi.75.

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The place that memory occupies in Plato's thought can

only be fully understood by setting it in the context of oralliterature and the recognized superiority of the spoken overthe written word. The conflict between Thamus and Theuthis another phase of the conflict between memory in the oraltradition and memory in the written tradition. We have inTheuth the dramatic expression of a new order in which

memory is made to rely on external symbols for its preserva-tion. On the other hand King Thamus represents the pres-ervation of memory in its pristine vitality as illustrated inthe oral tradition of poetry. He objects to Theuth's inventionbecause it would impair the creative character of memory.Plato in his explanation of the story decides against Theuthand sides with Thamus because the function of memory in

philosophy, whose dialectic is oral in character,56 is to givelife, vitality, and naturalness, which are the attributes of the

spoken word. It is the creative use of memory, which ismovement of thought, rather than a fixed formalized retentionof it in the written word, that Plato advocates.

Memory in the oral context is associated in Plato with the

original, and in a written context with the use of images. Ifwe are to understand Plato's rejection of memory in thewritten context and his defense of memory in the oral traditionwe must relate it to his

theoryof

originalvs.

image.Memory

in the written tradition relies on external symbols and, likethe mathematician who relies on external symbols, is inferiorto memory in the oral tradition. Memory in the oral tradi-

tion, like the dialectic in Plato's "Divided Line", proceedsunencumbered by symbolism. Oral memory is important in

thought because it is direct and free from symbolism; memoryin its written context is, like the book, a lifeless elcoXov. The

written word, however, like the image may be a stepping stoneto the original, but the memory of the philosopher must inits creative apprehension be similar to dialectic. Without

memory, knowledge could not be possible for the philosopher,56 Cf. the etymology of aLaXEKTiLKI.

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for knowledge is not learning from a written book but a

creative recollection of innate values. For the philosopher,as for the oral poet, memory is not a mechanical retention of

something learned from a book 57but the creative apprehensionof thought or poetry in the soul.

The contrast between memory in the written context and

memory in the oral context is further contrasted in terms of564a and ern-ir7r . Thamus tells Theuth that letters will giveto students aoOLas66av rather than aXO7ELav; hey will becomebo6oTaocoo nstead of ao-ol.58 Memory in its relation to ao4iais creative, i.e. memory is at the basis of the soul's recollectionof the world of ideas. Such a memory is intimately connectedwith dialectic which, like the literary form of the dialogue ofPlato's dialogues, reveals its oral basis and its preoccupationsolely with the spoken word. Furthermore this memoryshares in the creative task of dialectic, in its movement upward,in its vital oral task of a,tbvaaoaL . . . 3oo0-Oat.59 Memory inthe written context, on the other hand, is unable to proceedwithout the images and their imperfect and illusory naturewhich characterizes 66/a; it isbr6buvLvraLs; ts written X6oyos isbandied about (KvXLVEZTraL) ike an object of 564a 60among thosewho understand and those who have no interest in it; thewritten X6yosalways needs its father, the oral X6yos, o help it,for it has no

powerto

protectitself. The absence of life and

avjvaL,s, which is the quality of Being,61 relegates "written

memory" into the realm of 864a, the image, the lifeless, thederivative. The presence of the living power of reason inoral memory renders thought able to defend itself in argu-ment, and makes reason the natural handmaiden of dialectic;the oral nature of reason keeps philosophy from becoming setas a 'dogma'; any fixed form is likely to hinder and delayliving insight; reason keeps philosophy as a living process,

7This faculty is bvr,voir)ats; f. Phaedrus 275a.58 Phaedrus 275b.69 Ibid. 275e.60Ibid. 275e.61 Sophist 247e.

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in need of constant exercise to perpetuate itself; reason is

creative, seeking immortality through continual oral discus-sion.62 Thus this association of memory in the written andoral context with the opposites 66ca-t-:7rLaTr,ul reveals the depthof memory's roots in Plato's philosophy. Memory is notaoila, but without it there can be no dialectic. Behind theoral tradition is memory, and philosophy is essentially an oral

expression of thought. As Mnemosyne is the mother of

poetry so is she the mother of philosophy. The eirEa repEvrTaand X6yov 6L66vaL re correlative expressions of memory. Inoral poetry the poet creates through memory; in philosophythe dialectician proceeds by recollecting the knowledge of thedeas which the soul knows but has forgotten in this world.

The philosopher must depend on his memory of truth and itsoral expression in order to apprehend the truth in the horizonof the Good. Both oral poetry and oral dialectic found their

true being in Mnemosyne.Memory in philosophy, says Plato, is a 6Wpov . . rs rT-v

MovaWv xTrpos MvqYoao-vqs.63 ere we see definitely Plato'sawareness of the roots of his use of memory in the epic oraltradition where Mnemosyne is the mother of the Muses.

Plato, 6 Mvmloaovvf IXos,64 recognizes the relation of memoryin philosophy to the goddess of oral poetry, and is aware of

the single nature of their source. In the midst of the writtentradition of the fourth century,65 Plato resurrects the impor-62 Symposium 208a.63 Theaetetus 191d.64 Athenaeus 5.216b.65 Another advocate of the oral tradition and the superiority of the spoken

word over the written word is to be found in Alcidamas who in his IepI riTv rois

'ypa7rTrovs Xoyous ypao6bvrwv sets forth the advantages of extempore speech.Alcidamas' statements volUtcIo ba Kal TriV aOtoBlv Triv -ypaTrriv' X6'ycv aXE?7r)v Kal

TroV pxvri.fIv er7lrQov Kal rTv Xit6Olv aitrXpav ev roTs &a'yWot ylyve-OaL (18), and

h'yoUiat ' oOiSyov6 s StKaLov etvaL KaXElaOaa rovs ye-ypalu/evovs, aXX' &c7rep el6wXa

Kal ocrXj,Iara Kcal niutl7ara X6ywv (27) reflect Plato's influence. A study of

Alcidamas' oration which is to be found in Antiphon, ed. F. Blass (Leipzig,

Teubner, 1892), 193-205, shows the conscious attempt to reinvigorate the

oral tradition in the fourth century in other fields besides philosophy.

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tance of the oral tradition and its emphasis on the spoken

word and memory. Through the tale of Theuth and Thamushe reminds us of the long struggle of memory between remain-

ing purely oral or becoming derivative and symbolic in itsnature. He reflects this very same struggle in his own philoso-phy. In the struggle between the written and spoken wordhe sides with Thamus, and in doing so he is hearkening backto the oral tradition in which Mnemosyne was one of theoldest and most important of the deities. In reminding us of

memory, as being the gift of Mnemosyne, he also reminds usthat he is enthroning her once again as the mother of theMuses, but this time as the mother of the ELeyfarfTl vaULK,

philosophyIII

Out of this study of the important and unique survival ofthe oral tradition in a period when the written word had sup-planted oral literature, several problems arise, the answersto which at best are hypothetical and admit of no proof. Inview of the strongly rooted oral tradition of philosophy in theschool of Pythagoras with its emphasis on the cultivation ofmemory and the transmission of the doctrines of the founderby word of mouth until as late as the fourth century, is thereany connection between Socrates' oral method of teaching and

his abstinence from committing to writing his teaching orthoughts? We know that Socrates throughout his entire lifetaught solely by means of the spoken word, and though heread the works of other philosophers, like Anaxagoras,66 heabstained from writing. Burnet and Taylor have shown theprofound influence of Pythagoreanism and Orphism on Socra-tes' thought, how he was influenced by Pythagoreanism in hisviews on the nature of the soul, how he had among his studentsmembers of the Pythagorean school of philosophy who werewith him even on his last day. In view of the influence ofPythagoreanism on almost every essential phase of his thought,can his refusal to commit anything to writing and his pre-

66 Phaedo 97c, f.

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occupation entirely with the oral style be similarly considered

a heritage or influence of Pythagoreanism? We know thatall other schools of philosophy and philosophers committedtheir teaching to writing with the exception of the Pythago-reans and Socrates, who abstained from the written wordbecause it was inferior to the spoken word. Their abstinencefrom writing and the emphasis on the spoken word in theirteaching are too striking to be treated as a mere accident.Socrates impresses the judgment of his readers as a man whowas likely to follow the consequences of his teachings; if hethought that books were lifeless and that the spoken word isnearer to the true expression of philosophy it is not improb-able that he shared the Pythagorean point of view with regardto the oral transmission of thought. The exclusive feature oforal literature in both Pythagoreans and Socrates, and theabsence of such in other contemporary philosophers, lead the

student, who ventures into the realm of probabilities, in theabsence of any positive proof to the contrary, to think thatSocrates was likewise influenced by the Pythagorean view thatoral style was the only proper expression of the philosophicalsoul.

Another question that arises out of this same context is the

problem of the authorship of the view of the Phaedrus on the

questionof the

superiorityof the

spokenword and its intimate

relation to memory. Is this the view of the historical Soc-rates or is it Plato's own view expressed in the person ofSocrates in the dialogue? If we believe with Burnet and

Taylor in ascribing to Socrates the essential points that he

expresses in the dialogues where he is the central figure, we

may consider the doctrine Socratic. The answer to this ques-tion, however, depends in part upon the first. If we believe

that Socrates was following the Pythagorean oral traditionand its refusal to commit doctrines to writing, we certainlycan regard the doctrine of the Phaedrus as Socratic.67

67 For references to the Socratic or Platonic origin of this belief, cf. Paul

Shorey, What Plato Said (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1933),556.

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Perhaps the most startling phase of the problem of oral

literature in Plato is the influence of this oral tradition evenin works of Plato, like the Letters, which, wherever they aregenuine, express his own conviction and belief. Plato isin respect to the problem of the written vs. the oral word inphilosophy one of the most surprising contradictions; but thisneed not surprise anyone who is aware of the existence of themany contradictions in Plato's work. Plato as the author ofthe dialogues is perhaps the most gifted child of writtenliterature; he is the product of the written style and in thedialogues he is, if we stop to reflect, the very opposite of hismaster with respect to written expression of thought. Wish-ing to preserve the memory of his master he launched on thecomposition of the dialogues, like the oral poet in aim butunlike him in the means of expression. He used the writtenword to preserve the KX\OS f his master.

He did not, however, if the above hypothesis is probable,escape the teaching of his master that philosophy is best ex-pressed and its purpose most fulfilled by the practice of oralstyle. It is on this basis alone that a certain strain in Platocan be explained or understood. Plato never committed hisesoteric teaching to writing, but it was communicated andpreserved in the Academy orally. In this aspect we see acertain deliberate connection with his

expressionin the Letters.

The eschewal of Plato from committing the esoteric doctrinesof his thought, of which we have echoes in Aristotle, is to beassociated with echoes of the Phaedrus doctrine in the lettersof Plato himself. In the important Seventh Epistle of Platowe get certain intellectual, biographical revelations on therelation of philosophy to written expression: "One statementat any rate," he writes, "I can make in regard to all who have

written or who may write with a claim to knowledge of thesubjects to which I devote myself-no matter how they pre-tend to have acquired it, whether from my instruction or fromothers or by their own discovery. Such writers can in myopinion have no real acquaintance with the subject. I cer-

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James A. Notopoulos

tainly have composed no work in regard to it, nor shall I ever

do so in future; for there is no way of putting it in words likeother studies. Acquaintance with it must come rather aftera long period of attendance on instruction in the subject itselfand of close companionship, when, suddenly, like a blazekindled by a leaping spark, it is generated in the soul and atonce becomes self-sustaining. ... If I thought it possible todeal adequately with the subject in a treatise or a lecture forthe general public, what finer achievement would there havebeen in my life than to write a work of great benefit to man-kind and to bring the nature of things to light for all men?" 68In these remarks of Plato we get the same conclusion as the

Phaedrus, stated however without the philosophic explana-tion; it is the personal conviction of an artist who has reachedthe same conclusion as Pythagoras and Socrates after con-siderable years of apprenticeship to literary craft. This senti-

ment can best be understood as a chapter in the history oforal literature surviving as the best medium of expression in

philosophy. It is the realization of Plato that the doctrine

expressed in the Phaedrus is a sincere conviction of his ownas well, and in this light it is possible, though it cannot be

proven, that Plato's refusal to communicate his real philosophyto writing is the result of a conviction which Pythagoras andPlato and in fact

many greatteachers in the history of thought

have shared: the living word is the most satisfactory languageof the soul in its search of the highest, and attending this con-viction is the importance of memory which is the natural

'receptacle' of the living word. And such a memory as wehave seen is not merely retentive but is a creative medium

through which the soul enters into communication with thedivine nature of the soul and the ideas which require memory

for any proper apprehension of them.68 Epistle vII.341c-e (translation of L. Post, Thirteen Epistles of Plato

[Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1935]); cf. 344c and Epistle I.314c; cf. also the

anecdote (cited by Thompson, op. cit. [see note 35], p. 136) of a disciple of Plato

related by Hermeias: 7ravra ra Xe}y6j,eva wap' avro- &7roypaqa/Aevos &t7rErXvev,re,Kai vavaayiq repLneaocvv ravra &7rdcXeoe, Kai iO7reoarrpeoe Sp rbTv l66a-KaXov, pyw

peLopaOels rt oub et ev fL(3fXLOLs arotOeaOcaL rTa vorljara, aXX' ev T7 LvxV.

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The fortleben of Mnemosyne in the oral context of philoso-

phy in the fifth and fourth centuries, at the very threshold ofthe vigorous written tradition, is such as to cause us to wonderat its vitality. It is only in this context that certain phasesof our evidence about Pythagoreans, Socrates and Plato canbe understood. The relation of the Homeric oral literature tothe oral tradition and the importance of memory in philosophyis real and illuminating, and it is only by the 'association ofthe two that we can understand the

originsand the nature of

the spoken word in oral composition whether it be in poetryor philosophy. For men like Socrates and Plato are not to beunderstood in vacuo but only as we realize the roots of theirthought which extend to times and practices of which writtenliterature preserves only echoes.

An inevitable consequence of this is the warning lest we inour modern criticism, we, the children of the written word,

should apply to the criticism of literature which is oral incharacter the concepts or the qualities that we associate withwritten literature. In his studies of epic oral literature Parryhas shown the error of such a method which leads to obscurityof the nature of epic oral creation. In philosophy likewisewe must approach Platonic criticism with standards that areconsonant with the nature and background of oral style in

philosophy.Such an

approachto

Platonic criticism will showthat we may be called upon to revise certain conceptions orthe basis of certain probabilities.

One of these is the problem of the relation of memory andthe 'historicity' of Socrates in Plato's pages. The problemof the 'historicity' has been abstracted from the part thatmemory may have played in it. In the case of oral poetryscholars and the spade have shown the trustworthy basis offolk-memory in Greek legends. Myres maintains that folk-memory is so intimate and detailed it must not be mistakenfor poetic invention; "the Iliad and Odyssey," he says, "what-ever their date in the form in which we have them now, reston a coherent and trustworthy foundation of folk-memory,

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James A. Notopoulos

and give vivid and copious illustrations of a historical Achaean

world." 69 This aspect of memory is the retentive rather thanthe creative aspect of it in oral composition. It will be ob-served that this retentive character of folk-memory is likewiseapplicable to dramatic creation in the great age of Atticdrama. The material of tragedy was not invention but dataof folk-memory, for however the tragedians treated the themesthey did not invent them in our sense of the word. Thetragedians like the oral poets are true to folk-memory.

When we come, however, to Plato, memory is omitted asa factor in the trustworthy basis of his characters and theirutterances. Plato repeats again and again that a philosophermust have a good memory,70 retentive as well as creative.The Pythagoreans trained their memory religiously in orderto preserve with accuracy their master's teachings. Socratesin turn exhibits no wild inventive turn of mind in so far as

the Pythagorean doctrines are concerned; he penetrates totheir meaning and adapts them to his purpose but he does notinvent them. When we come to Plato, however, who was inthe tradition of the spoken word and its association with

memory, who says that the philosopher must be endowed witha good memory, who heard his master, why need we trans-

port to the problem of the historicity of Socrates or the dia-

logues,the

fanciful, imaginative,and

tradition-abstractingtendencies of modern written literature? 71 In a society suchas fifth-century Athens, which was separated only by severalcenturies from the oral tradition, such tales as those of Theuthand Thamus are echoes of an oral era, like the legends of

folk-memory whose kernel of truth Myres so significantlypoints out in his book on Who Were the Greeks? Similarly,Plato's portraits of the contemporaries of Socrates are so

trustworthy that, as Burnet points out, we have in Plato anessentially true picture of the intellectual background of fifth-

69 Myres, op. cit. (see note 17), 313.70Republic 486d, 494b, 535c.71 Cf. M. J. Austin, "Plato as a writer of imaginary conversations," Cl.

Jour. xvII (1922), 243-55.

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century Athens; anachronisms are insignificant in this picture

which he drew with fidelity. Imaginative falsification is theproduct of written literature rather than of the oral natureof the interrelation of minds in the Socratic circle. WhenPlato wrote about Socrates, the oral tradition of memory wasso vital, fresh and retentive, in contrast to our modern mem-ory, that it was not a great feat of memory to rememberexactly the content of a conversation in the Socratic circle.The oral mind is capable of memorizing with ease what seemsincredible to us, and to remember the exact and specific ideasof a speaker was not unusual. In Plato we have several in-stances which justify our confidence in the essential trust-worthiness of reported conversations. It is not withoutsignificance that Socrates is shown in the Menexenus 72 asendowed with such a power of memory that he can repeat anoration which he had heard Aspasia make. In the Timaeus

we have another instance of this power of retaining in memorythe substance of a conversation. Critias says: "I listened atthe time with childlike interest to the old man's narrative;he was very ready to teach me, and I asked him again andagain to repeat his words, so that like an indelible picturethey were branded into my mind. As soon as the day broke,I rehearsed them as he spoke them to my companions, that

they,as well as

myself, mighthave

somethingto

say. Andnow, Socrates, to make an end of my preface, I am ready totell you the whole." 73 In this we can see the pains Critiastakes so as to report the conversation accurately. Plato istoo great an artist to be endowing his dramatis personaewith powers which they do not possess. If in the fourthcentury Niceratus could repeat from memory the entire Iliadand Odyssey,74 the remembrance of the conversation betweenSocrates and Parmenides does not seem "an impossible tour

72Menexenus 236 b-c; cf. Hippias' remark that he could memorize fiftynames on hearing them only once, Hippias Major 285e.

73 Timaeus 26b-c (B. Jowett transl.); cf. Phaedrus 228a.74Xenophon Symposium iII.5, 6.

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James A. Notopoulos

de force of memory." 75 In these instances Plato has shown

that the power of remembering conversations is not unusualbut is an illustration in the concrete of his statement "theforgetful soul we must not list in the roll of competent loversof wisdom but we require a good memory". 76 Accuracy in

reporting conversations is thus integrally bound with the oral

practice of philosophy.We have an actual analogy in the case of Thucydides who

says that he has endeavored in his speeches to give the generalpurport of what was actually said; 77 though the style withwhich Thucydides clothes all the speeches may lead us todoubt his remark, as I have tried to show elsewhere,78 it isthe ideas which characterize the speakers that make for trust-worthiness and fidelity to what was spoken on each occasion.Thus, although the style in Archidamus' speech is the sameas the style of Pericles' speech, the individual characteriza-

tions of ideas are different. It is on the ideas of individualcharacterization that both Plato and Thucydides base the

fidelity of their portraits and not on style. As Taylor hasshown in the case of the Socrates of Plato and that of Aeschinesof Sphettus,79 it is the style that is different, but the individualcharacterization of Socrates is the same. The retentivenessof the masters' ideas, expressed by the living word, is thereforenot an

extraordinary thingfor Plato, who, as we have seen,

was the child both of the oral and written word. His memoryof the ideas of a discussion even when he was not present isnot extraordinary. For example, if Simmias and Cebes were

present on the last day and heard the discussion of the master76 Shorey, op. cit. (see note 67), 287.76Republic 486d (in Loeb Cl. Lib.).77 i.22.78 J. A. Notopoulos, "Plato, Theaetetus 153, and Thucydides 6.18.6," The

Classical Weekly xxvII (1933), 60-61. For Thucydides' attribution to hisspeakers of "ideas and arguments familiar at the time when he represents themas speaking ", cf. J. H. Finley, Jr., "Euripides and Thucydides," HarvardStudies in Classical Philology XLIX (1938), 22-68.

79A. E. Taylor, "Aeschines of Sphettus," in Philosophical Studies (London,Macmillan, 1934), 1-27.

492 [1938


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on immortality, their Pythagorean oral retentiveness was

likely to have imparted to Plato, who was absent,80 a fairlyaccurate report of the conversation. For though an oral poetin epic tradition retains the content through meter, in prosememory of the oral word preserves the ideas rather than thewords, as the speeches of Thucydides and the dialogues ofPlato show. And to an audience that received its enjoymentof Greek tragedy orally, memory was, as Parry and Joussehave shown, a thing of sound rather than of print. To falsifytradition, or abstract from a trustworthy context the ideasof a speaker, is for Plato a practice that is not consonant withthe oral basis of literature or philosophy. His veneration forthe master is not likely to turn false where it concerns theliving word of his master; for to remember the oral context ofphilosophy is to remember truthfully, as the Pythagorean rigidtraining of memory reveals.

A re-examination of Plato, with the added insight of theimportance of memory and oral tradition in philosophy, isessential if we are to get a clear view of the problems ofPlatonic criticism. We will then have a sounder basis forthe judgment of such verdicts as: "there is no likelihood thatjust such a speech as the Apology was ever delivered to anAthenian jury." 81 No solutions of the Platonic problems canbe reached by

departingfrom 7 (K

rjsXEcoXSXbv-s. A

studyof the form and function of the oral style in philosophy istherefore one of the ways to establish the character of Platonicthought. Knowledge of that oral style reveals the originalityand naturalness of Platonic dialectic. By understanding thatits roots lie in the name and nature of Mnemosyne we will,like the consultors of the oracle of Trophonius, drink of thefountain of Lethe to forget our errors of criticism, and drink

of the fountain of Mnemosyne to remember what is revealedto us by the oracle of Plato.

80Phaedo 59b.81 P. Shorey, op. cit. (see note 67), 81.

Vol. Ixixl 493

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Mnemosyne in Oral Literature

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