FYI

[ricardienne]

At line 5 ff. the poet bids his addressee circulate along the benches of a ship and drink deeply: he gives as a reason the company's inability to remain sober in this spell of guard-duty.

Should we conclude that Archilochus sang this song for the first time while on guard by a beached ship? If so, I am tempted to suggest that the reason we have no more of the song is that the singer's throat was cut by a Thracian guerrilla: for real guard-duty is not effective if punctuated by drunken song.
--E.L. Bowie, "Early Greek Elegy, Symposium, and Public Festival." JHS 106. p. 16

(To be fair, there is no reason why soldiers on watch wouldn't *sing* songs about being drunk while on watch, even if they weren't actually drinking, is there?)

Comments

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

I suppose it would depend on whether or not one could
1.) sing without letting it be too distracting
2.) make that much noise while on watch.

I guess I always pictured one being silent while on watch, although now that I think about it, maybe you are just out there sometimes for deterrent purposes? In that case, I guess you would want to be as obvious as possible...