Forms of Address in Herondas

As a collection of dialogic poetry about everyday situations, with unparalleled female protagonism, Herondas’ Mimiamboi make a privileged object of linguistic research on the forms of address in ancient Greek. Such an analysis of this corpus has, however, never been done before. Still, a correct assessment of form of address is essential to interpret correctly Herondas’ Mimiamboi and also to understanding the cultural background in which those scenes were staged.

A quantitative analysis of the corpus as a whole shows that the most common form of address in Herondas is Personal Names (henceforth: PN) without apposition of modification (65%), which, if compared with Dickey’s data (Dickey, 46–7), makes these texts closer to prose (64%, calculated on a vast corpus ranging from Herodotus to Lucian) than to Menander (40%), let alone Aristophanes (12%). That is coherent with the pedestrian style Herondas uses throughout the text. 

More interesting from a sociolinguistic point of view is the analysis of how forms of address are used to underline social distance between characters. Not only do slaves address their master differently than they are addressed by them, but we can notice asymmetry between friends, as none of the three couples of friends in  the Mimiamboi—all women—address each other symmetrically: in Mimiamb 1 we know for certain that it is due to age difference, though in Mimiambs 4 and 6 we can only make assumptions. Since only one friend in each couple addresses the other with hypocoristic PN or φίλη, this could indicate she is the dominant one in the relationship, due to age, character, or something else (according to Dickey, pp. 134–5 φίλε in prose dialogues is used by the interlocutor who is dominating or “patronizing,” most notably the Platonic Socrates). 

In spite of neglect in modern scholarship on the subject, Herondas is also one of our main sources on ancient Greek literary “female speech.” Considering only the point of view of forms of address we can see many signs of genderized characterization of the female speakers, such the endearing role of hypocoristics (especially of PNs), as well as by the affectionate τέκνον for a younger female (1.13, 1.21, 1.59, 1.61 1.85), and the recurring τάλης/τάλας/τάλαν/τάλαινα (1.36, 3.35, 5.55) identified as“female speech” already by ancient grammarians (e.g. Schol. Plat. Theaet. 178e, cf. Bain, 33n43)  and used as such in comedy and in tragedy (cf. Bain, 33–6 for comedy; McClure, 47 and 57 for tragedy).

The different forms of address are not only a characterization tool but also fulfill a rhetorical function: when a character changes form of address, this can be interpreted as a change in attitude. An example of this is Mimiamb 1, when the younger Metriche addresses the older Gyllis with the affectionate yet respectful  ἀμμίη, until line 67, when, indignant at her indecent proposal, she switches to the more detached PN. 

All these features make the analysis of address forms seminal to the correct understanding of the Mimiamboi.