{"id":1446,"date":"2024-06-12T20:40:08","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T20:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2024-06-12T21:21:23","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T21:21:23","slug":"perdix-is-greek-for-partridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/2024\/06\/12\/perdix-is-greek-for-partridge\/","title":{"rendered":"Perdix is Greek for “partridge”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perdix hardly cuts a common figure in our contemporary awareness of classical mythology. You may not have ever noticed him. Perdix flies too low for notice and only rarely squawks from the fringes. A couple of well-known Renaissance paintings adapt the Perdix myth. These adaptations have allowed Perdix to escape like an upland game bird into the dense underbrush of classical mythological adaptations.<\/p>\n

\"\"
IcarusDaedalus1.0020_Brueghel = “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c.1555 (oil on canvas) by Bruegel, Pieter the Elder (c.1525-69); 73.5×112 cm; Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium; (add.info.: Icarus seen with his legs thrashing in the sea;); Giraudon; Flemish. This images is derived from Google’s Arts & Culture site.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s iconic \u201cLandscape with The Fall of Icarus\u201d perches the chortling perdix <\/i>bird on a limb right beside Icarus\u2019 fatal crash into the sea. Brueghel\u2019s painting overtly reverses the human observation that plays prominently in Ovid\u2019s narrative: nobody in Bruegel\u2019s painting seems to notice Icarus\u2019 mortality. Ironically, Perdix does. And Bruegel\u2019s chattering bird notes full well the demise of a rival. Brueghel places Perdix as the closest living thing to fallen Icarus. And the bird responds open-mouthed to the boy’s\u00a0 loss.<\/p>\n

Though in classical versions Perdix played a critical role in Daedalus\u2019 exile to the Minoan court on Crete, the young man\u2019s obscurity never rises to the notoriety of Icarus’ hybristic flight nor of Daedalus’ ingenuity. Yet, back in Athens Perdix had been poised to become the more clever engineer, even better than his uncle Daedalus, to whom Perdix had been apprenticed. The precocious youngster Perdix \u2014 in some ancient authors he\u2019s known as Kalos or Talos \u2014 quickly outshone his clever uncle. He invented the compass, the potter\u2019s wheel, and the saw. This last invention sprang from Perdix’ fertile observation of a fish skeleton. Perdix died \u2014 or, better, was metamorphosed \u2014 plummeting headlong (praeceps lapsus<\/i>; Ov. Met. <\/i>8.251 \u2014 pushed from the Athenian Acropolis during his apprenticeship to Daedalus. When Perdix fell, Daedalus\u2019 known jealousy for the young ward\u2019s ingenuity brought from the Areopagus suspicion of foul play (propter artificii invidiam<\/i>; Hygin. Fab.<\/i> 39), a capital charge for which Daedalus was banished. No witness observed that in his last moment Perdix had been transformed \u2014 either by Athena’s intervention or by the clever boy himself (!)[2]<\/span> \u2014 into the famously low-flying bird, the partridge.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Ovid, whose narrative Brueghel adapts in his picture, caps his timeless episode of Icarus and Daedalus\u2019 tragic flight (Metamorphoses<\/i> 8.183-235) telling Partridge\u2019s schadenfroh<\/i> delight at Daedalus\u2019 abject grief over fallen Icarus:<\/p>\n

Hunc [i.e. Daedalum] miseri tumulo ponentem corpora nati
\ngarrula limoso prospexit ab elice perdix
\net plausit pennis testataque gaudia cantu est:
\nunica tunc volucris nec visa prioribus annis
\nfactaque nuper avis, longum tibi, Daedale, crimen. \u00a0\u2014 Met<\/i>. 8.236-43<\/p>\n

A chatterbox partridge watched from a marshy furrow as Daedalus laid
\nhis son’s pitiable body in a grave. It applauded with wings, manifesting
\nits exultation in the squawking. The then-novel fowl, never seen in foregone days,
\nrecently created, chirps at you, Daedalus, your everlasting crime.\u00a0 \u2014 Trans. RTM<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ovid wants his reader to notice Partridge in this closure to the Daedalus episode. For the narrator prolongs the rustling bird\u2019s incriminating taunt in the triplicate emphasis on the Partridge\u2019s novelty. Though Daedalus had contrived a way for humans to imitate birds, Perdix\u2019 metamorphosis, which had occurred years prior, is a full transformation from human to bird. Ovid continues, observing that Minerva\u2019s intervention had protected the boy from headlong death, transformed him mid-air into a bird and clothed him in feathers while also infusing his native cleverness into fleetness of wing and of foot.\u00a0The transformed Perdix ironically contrasts his cousin\u2019s impetuousness by never flying high to lofty nests in treetops but ever flying close to the ground where, having learned an important lesson, the partridge lays its eggs in hedges, antiquique memor metuit sublimia casus: <\/i>mindful of that old fall, Perdix still eschews heights \u2026 and he still has a lot to say.<\/p>\n

Bruegel’s “Icarus” uses the Perdix myth to enrich the Icarus narrative. The homage to Ovid attests to the persistence of the Metamorphoses<\/em>‘ influence.<\/p>\n

Other treatments of the Perdix myth include Apollodorus,\u00a0Library<\/em> 3.15.8, Hyginus\u00a0Fabulae<\/em> 274,\u00a0Pliny\u00a0Historia Naturalis <\/em>7.57, references offered by Robert Graves\u00a0Greek Myths <\/em>92.b.
\nNo article in OGCMA treats Perdix separately, though he is mentioned s.v. “Icarus and Daedalus”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2014 RTM<\/p>\n

[2] Michael Simpson (1976)\u00a0Gods and Heroes of the Greeks: the\u00a0<\/em>Library\u00a0of Apollodorus\u00a0<\/em>(Amherst: UnivMassachusetts Press), 218 argues that Ovid’s text suggests here that ‘Perdix himself invented his transformation while falling.’<\/p>\n

[3] Robert Graves (1955)\u00a0The Greek Myths<\/em> (Penguin) 92b, sees Perdix’ fall from the Acropolis as Daedalus’ murder and cover-up
\nthat Perdix had offended Daedalus by having incestuous relations with Polycaste \u2014 Perdix’ mother and Daedalus’ sister.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perdix hardly cuts a common figure in our contemporary awareness of classical mythology. You may not have ever noticed him. Perdix flies too low for notice and only rarely squawks from the fringes. A couple of well-known Renaissance paintings adapt the Perdix myth. These adaptations … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[156,157],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icarus-and-daedalus","category-perdix"],"modified_by":"Roger Macfarlane","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1451,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/1451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}