In the Snell-Maehler edition of Bacchylides there is a very comprehensive bibliography, listing almost 300 items concerned with Bacchylides poems. It is significant that 80 per cent of these were written in the first twenty years following Kenyon's publication of the Bacchylides papyri in 1897. Of the articles which have appeared since the First World War, many are concerned with more recent papyrus discoveries and a few are stylistic discussions. For most of the poems dealt with in the pioneering days (...) of Bacchylidean scholarship certain readings of the text and interpretations of it have become canonical. This article aims to show in just one poem, XVII, a few instances in which the accepted interpretations should be re-examined. In some cases new interpretations are offered, but in others older views have been resurrected and bolstered by further argument. (shrink)