Atalanta and SapphoWomen in and out of time

The Pre-Alexandrian Footnote

“…145 In that case, the surviving fragments of the Catalogue offer potential evidence for the kind of pre-Homeric traditions with which the Odyssey may have engaged. Of course, we must handle this evidence with considerable care and caution, since parts of the Catalogue as we have it may display some Homeric influence, 146 but even so, our surviving fragments still provide the best window onto the possible contours of lost pre-Homeric traditions. In the immediate context of Odyssey 11, I thus consider it plausible that Homer is evoking earlier female catalogue traditions that would later coalesce into our Hesiodic Catalogue of Women.…”

“…I follow Ormand (2013) 139 in seeing these doublets as deriving from an originally single mythical figure, sharing 'the significant attributes of aversion to marriage and swiftness of foot' and reflecting the same basic trope of a woman paradoxically inhabiting a liminal, male, ephebic state (cf. Detienne (1979) 30-2;Ormand (2014) 121-2). 258 Ormand (2014) 132-3.…”