Parmenides’ Proem and the pseudo-Hesiodic Shield of Heracles

The poet of Elea has drawn renewed attention in recent years not only for his philosophy but also his poetics, especially the enigmatic proem: here, an anonymous narrator is carried by mares and escorted by Heliades to the gates of the paths of Night and Day, where he is greeted by a goddess who will proclaim the remainder of the poem. In this paper, I argue for the presence of a previously underrecognized intertext of the pseudo-Hesiodic Shield of Heracles throughout Parmenides’ proem (B1.1-32). I then read it alongside another intertext, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, for the development of a dualistic psychological motive in the proem, a motive first authorized by the ambiguous θυμὸς of the first line (ἵπποι ταί με φέρουσιν ὅσον τ᾿ ἐπὶ θυμὸς ἱκάνοι, Β1.1). In his sophisticated manipulations of these intertexts—both evoking and departing from epic convention—Parmenides achieves powerful psychological effects unique in early hexameter.

Alexander Mourelatos first identified in 1970 a potential Parmenidean connection to the Shield: its language of a cry to the accompaniment of syrinxes (ὑπὸ λιγυρῶν συρίγγων ἵεσαν αὐδὴν, Asp.278) parallels a line of Parmenides (ἵει σύριγγος ἀυτὴν, B1.6). However, this connection was not pursued by Mourelatos or other scholars, who have largely focused on allusions to the Odyssey (Folit-Weinberg), Hesiod’s Theogony (Burkert) and Anaximander (Miller).

Beginning with this parallel, I trace the broader presence of the Shield in Parmenides’ proem (B1.1-32), in which Parmenides transforms its public bridal procession into a private chariot journey (Asp.270-280), estranging its recognizable social reality into a mythic and abstracted realm. At the same time, Parmenides intensifies the Shield’s already concentrated appeal to the senses by dispensing with epic strategies, such as similes and ecphrasis, that mediate and distance. This combination of estrangement and immersion contributes to the proem’s disorienting effects. Furthermore, the Shield intertext supports a reading of the narrator’s journey as a kind of bridal procession; his escorts, the Heliades, may feel comfortable unveiling themselves to the narrator (Β1.10) because they are, in a sense, wedded to him. Indeed, the male narrator is welcomed by a goddess who takes his hand and refers to him as a “consort tο immortal charioteers and horses” (ἀθανάτῃσι συνήορος ἡνιόχοισιν ἵπποις, Β1.24-25).

I then read the proem for the conflicting presences of the Shield and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (previously identified as an intertext by Gemelli Marciano and Kingsley). Like Parmenides’ proem, the H.h.Dem. is dominated by female figures and contains a chariot journey to the underworld, albeit one forced upon an unwilling female (ἀέκουσαν, H.h.Dem.20). It is this violent compulsion which reverberates against the Shield’s joyful bridal procession. In my reading, Parmenides develops a strong psychological motive through these allusions to a bride’s seizure and a bridal procession, representing conflicting Freudian drives of Thanatos and Eros. Because of his unique engagement of epic convention and allusion to develop and embody this motive, I suggest that Parmenides deserves greater recognition for the psychological acuity of his poetics.