The First Poets Read online

  DOLICHOS long foot-race; Lattimore renders it “distance run”

  EIKEI “taking it as it comes”

  ELEGIA from ELEGOS, a lament; a funeral lamentation or ode written in elegiacs and, by extension, any poem written in elegiac verse

  ENARGES divine epiphany

  ENCOMIA eulogies, poems of formal and high-flown praise

  EPHOR one of the five annually appointed Spartan magistrates who was responsible for seeing to the management of the city

  EPIDEIXASTHAI publish

  EPINICEA after-victory odes

  EPODOS after-song, after-ode, following the STROPHE (turn) and ANTISTROPHE (counter-turn)

  EUNOMIA the order of good laws which harmonise the lives of citizens

  GERON (PAIS: young boy; MEIRAKION: young person; NEANISKOS: youth; ANER: man; PRESBYTES: older man; GERON: old man)

  HELOT a slave of Sparta

  HOPLITE an armed Spartan warrior. The term derives from the hoplon, the round shield he held in his left hand.

  HUBRIS or HYBRIS: tragic pride, overweening self-confidence which requires punishment

  HYPORCHEMA (pl. HYPORCHEMATA) dance ode

  IAMBOPOIOS writers of iambics

  KARIS one of the Graces; poetry’s enchantment, the pleasure of celebration

  KARITES the Graces

  KELES single-horse race

  KERTOMEIN sneer, mock

  KITHARA an ancient stringed instrument, triangular in shape, with from seven to eleven strings (“cithern” and “guitar” derive from this word)

  KLEOS glory and fame, which dignify worked-for success

  KREOS the obligation a poet has to praise

  LEMMA a rubric preceding a poem describing its theme or form or providing it with a title (a lemmatist is one who adds such lemma, as in the Anacreontea)

  LOIDORIA verbal abuse

  MAGADIS an instrument with twenty strings, their arrangement in octaves: Athenaeus conjectures that the magadis might have been strings or pipes, and he quotes Anacreon: “Holding the magadis I strike its twenty strings, while you, Leucaspis, enjoy the fun of youth.” He goes on to quote another authority who makes the strings into pipes.

  MEIRAKION (PAIS: young boy; MEIRAKION: young person; NEANISKOS: youth; ANER: man; PRESBYTES: older man; GERON: old man)

  MELOS music

  MOIRA destiny, fate

  NEANISKOS (PAIS: young boy; MEIRAKION: young person; NEANISKOS: youth; ANER: man; PRESBYTES: older man; GERON: old man)

  NOSTOI tales of the returns of heroes, homecomings

  NOSTOS heart-ache for homecoming, saudade (cf. Luce, p. 165: root of “nostalgia”)

  OBELOS “a horizontal stroke as a critical sign” used by Aristarchus to mark lines in poems which he thought might be spurious

  OLBOS, OLBIOS one with cherished male offspring, stables and hounds, and a friend to offer hospitality. Herodotus contrasts olbios and eutuches, enjoyer of superficial good fortune.

  OSTRACISM an Athenian custom which led to the exiling of a citizen for ten years, the purpose being to limit the influence a single man could have within the city, to (as it were) make the city proof against tyranny. Voting was conducted by writing the name of the candidate for ostracism on a potsherd, an ostrakon.

  PAIS young boy (followed by MEIRAKION: young person; NEANISKOS: youth; ANER: man; PRESBYTES: older man; GERON: old man)

  PALIMPSEST a papyrus or parchment which has been erased and reused one or more times, the original writing still perceptible beneath the later texts

  PANCRATION trial of strength involving boxing, wrestling, kicking, strangling, twisting (biting and gouging were forbidden, but almost everything else was allowed: bone-breaking, wrenching limbs out of joint, neck holds, etc.)

  PARAGRAPHOS a horizontal dash used in the drama to indicate a change of speaker. Diringer: “a short stroke called parágraphos (hence our word ‘paragraph’) which is placed under [the] last line of a clause, below the first letter of this line.”

  PENTATHLON five-sports competition: running, long-jump, discus, javelin, wrestling

  PERIODONIKES winner in all four major Games

  PERIOECI “dwellers in the neighbourhood,” free men living in Sparta, not full citizens, unenfranchised, providing certain services

  PHILIA the affectionate bond between men of good character and will

  PHORMINX an early simple lyre

  PHUA innate character

  POIKILIA variety

  POLIS (pl. POLEIS) city, city-state

  PONEIN to toil, imposed on men by Zeus

  PRESBYTES (PAIS: young boy; MEIRAKION: young person; NEANISKOS: youth; ANER: man; PRESBYTES: older man; GERON: old man)

  PRIAMEL creating a foil for the subject, as at the opening of Pindar’s Olympic I: water and gold, the best in their realms, are foils for the Olympic Games, the best of games.

  PROOIMION, PROEME a prologue or overture

  PROSODION a processional song

  PSYCHE appears when a man dies, a spirit residue: breath-soul or shadow-soul; while he lives, a man’s psyche is the source of thoughts and desires. Can be seen as dividing into thumos (concerned with emotions), thren (Lesky, p. 71: “the midriff as the seat of intellectual activity, hence intellectual activity itself”) and nous (“imagination, conception”). We cannot systematise these terms.

  SAMBUCA, SAMBUKE an ancient stringed instrument, triangular like the kithara, with a shrill sound

  SCHOLIA interpretative notes or bodies of notes

  SKOLION a poem that made the rounds at banquets, sung accompanied by a lyre, often derogatory, satirical (cf. Timocreon). It comes from the zig-zag course of the song: a myrtle branch was passed back and forth from singer to singer as the poem went its rounds.

  SKOLIOS (pl. SKOLIA) “tortuous,” the name for an early form of drinking song

  SKOPTIKA hate epigrams

  SKYPHOS a drinking bowl with small handles at the rim

  SOMA body or, in Homer, corpse

  SOPHIA wisdom, moral understanding, a poet’s wisdom and the skills and crafts that go with its expression

  SPARTIATES full citizens of Sparta

  STADION a footrace that, in Olympia, was an eponymous stade long (an eighth of a Roman mile, rendered in the Bible as a furlong); Lattimore renders it “dash”

  STROPHE the opening movement of the ode, the turn, followed by antistrophe (counter-turn) and epodos (after-song)

  TETHRIPOöN four-horse chariot race

  THEMIS the power given by Zeus to kings; what is obligatory on man through the bonds of nature or usage; the power commerce between the sexes; the goddess who carries through Zeus’s commands

  THEOS god, the element of the divine in human deeds

  THRENOS (pl. THRENOI) lament, laments for the dead

  TIMé love of honour

  TYRANT derives from “a language of Asia Minor” and means, in essence, “sole ruler,” generally distinguished from a king or other hereditary or elected leader

  XENIA the cordiality and courtesy due to a guest Bibliography

  Bibliography

  PRIMARY TEXTS, TRANSLATIONS AND STUDIES

  Alcaeus of Mytilene

  Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric Poetry I: Sappho, Alcaeus (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982)

  Page, D. L., Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford, 1979)

  Burnett, Anne Pippin, Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho (London, 1983)

  Alcman of Sardis

  Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric Poetry II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988)

  Page, D. L., Alcman: the Partheneion (Oxford, 1951)

  Anacreon of Teos and the Anacreontea

  Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric Poetry II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988)

  Gentili, B., Anacreon (Rome, 1958)

  Apollonius of Rhodes

  Green, Peter, translator, Argonautika (Berkeley, 1997)

&
nbsp; Hunter, R. L., The Argonautica of Apollonius: Library Studies (Cambridge, 1993)

  _____., translator, Jason and the Golden Fleece (Oxford, 1998)

  Rieu, E. V., translator, The Voyage of the Argo (Harmondsworth, 1959)

  Archilochus of Paros

  Burnett, Anne Pippin, Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho (London, 1983)

  Edmonds, J. M., Elegy and Iambus II (London, 1931)

  Gerber, Douglas E., Greek Iambic Poetry (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999)

  Bacchylides of Cos

  Bowra, C. M., Early Greek Elegists (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1935)

  _____, Greek Lyric Poetry: From Alcman to Simonides (second edition, Oxford, 1961)

  Burnett, Anne Pippin, The Art of Bacchylides (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985)

  Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric Poetry IV: Bacchylides, Corinna, and Others (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992)

  Fagles, R., and A. Parry, Bacchylides: Complete Poems (New Haven, 1961)

  Slavitt, David R., Epinician Odes and Dithyrambs of Bacchylides (Philadelphia, 1998)

  Callimachus of Cyrene

  Cameron, A., Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton, 1995)

  Harder, M. A., R. F. Regtuit, and G. C. Walker, editors, “Die Einbeziehung des Lesers in den Epigrammen des Kallimachos,” Callimachus: Hellenistica Groningana I (Groningen, 1993)

  Hollis, A. S., Callimachus’ Hecale (Oxford, 1990)

  Hutchinson, C. O., Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford, 1990)

  Lombardo, S., and D. Rayor, translators, Callimachus: Hymns, Epigrams, Select Fragments (Baltimore, 1988)

  Mair, A. W., ed., Callimachus and Lycophron (London, 1921)

  Pfeiffer, R., Kallimachos, two volumes (Oxford, 1949, 1953 [1998])

  Trypanis, Constantine A., Callimachus: Aetia, Iambi, Hecale and Other Fragments (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1958)

  Webster, T. B. L., Hellenistic Poetry and Art (London, 1964)

  Young, G. M., The Epigrams of Callimachus (Oxford, 1934)

  Corinna of Tanagra

  Balmer, Josephine, translator, Classical Women Poets (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1996)

  Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric Poetry IV: Bacchylides, Corinna, and Others (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992)

  Page, D. L., Corinna (London, 1963)

  Hesiod

  Burn, A. R., The World of Hesiod (London, 1936)

  Evelyn-White, Hugh C., Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica (London, 1914)

  Janko, R. C. M., Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns (Cambridge, 1982)

  Lamberton, Robert, Hesiod (New Haven, 1988)

  Lattimore, Richmond, trans., The Works and Days, Theogony, The Shield of Achilles (Ann Arbor, 1959)

  Lombardo, Stanley, trans., Works and Days and Theogony, Introduction by Robert Lamberton (Indianapolis, 1993)

  West, M. L., ed., Theogony (Oxford, 1966)

  _____, ed., Works and Days (Oxford, 1978)

  _____, trans., Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns (Oxford, 1988)

  Hipponax of Ephesus

  Gerber, Douglas E., Greek Iambic Poetry (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999)

  West, M. L., Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (New York/Berlin, 1974)

  Homer

  Boer, Charles, The Homeric Hymns (Athens, Ohio, 1970)

  Butler, Samuel, Iliad (London, 1898), prose translation

  _____, Odyssey (London, 1900), prose translation

  Evelyn-White, Hugh G., Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica (London, 1914) Fagles, R., Iliad (New York, 1990), verse translation

  _____, Odyssey (Harmondsworth, 1996), verse translation

  Fitzgerald, Robert, Iliad (New York, 1974), verse translation

  _____, Odyssey (New York, 1961), verse translation

  Foley, H., Hymn to Demeter (Princeton, 1993)

  Hammond, J. M., Iliad (Harmondsworth, 1987), prose translation

  Lattimore, Richmond, Iliad (Chicago, 1951), verse translation

  _____, Odyssey (New York, 1965), verse translation

  Logue, Christopher, War Music: An Account of Books 1–4 and 16–19 of Homer’s Iliad (London, 2001)

  Murray, A. T., editor and translator, Iliad: Books 1–12, revised by William F. Wyatt (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999)

  _____, Iliad: Books 13–24, revised by William F. Wyatt (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999)

  _____, The Odyssey: Books 1–12, revised by George E. Dimmock (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995)

  _____, The Odyssey: Books 13–24, revised by George E. Dimmock (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995)

  Rieu, E. V., Odyssey (Harmondsworth, 1991), prose translation

  Sargeant, T., Homeric Hymns (New York, 1973)

  Sherwing, Walter, Odyssey (Oxford, 1980), prose translation

  Steiner, George, ed., Homer in English (Harmondsworth, 1996)

  West, M. L., trans., Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns (Oxford, 1988)

  References for Homeric Texts

  Autenrieth, Georg, Homeric Dictionary (London, 1984)

  Athanasakis, A., The Homeric Hymns (Baltimore, 1976)

  Clay, J. S., The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns (Princeton, 1989)

  Doherty, Lillian E., Siren Songs: Gender, Audience, and Narrators in the Odyssey (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1995)

  Edwards, M. W., Homer, Poet of the Iliad (Baltimore, 1987)

  Finley, M. I., The World of Odysseus (New York, 1954)

  Griffin, Jasper, Homer (Oxford, 1980)

  _____, Homer on Life and Death (Oxford, 1983)

  Janko, R. C. M., Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns (Cambridge, 1982)

  de Jong, I., ed., Homer: Critical Assessments (New York, 1998)

  Kirk, G. S., The Songs of Homer (Cambridge, 1962)

  Latacz, J., Homer, His Art and His World (1985; translation, Ann Arbor, 1996)

  Luce, J. V., Celebrating Homer’s Landscapes: Troy and Ithaca Revisited (New Haven, 1998)

  Morrison, James, Homeric Misdirection: False Predictions in the Iliad (Michigan, 1994)

  Murray, Oswyn, Early Greece (London, 1980)

  Nagy, Gregory, Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond (Cambridge, 1996)

  _____, Homeric Questions (Texas, 1996)

  Page, D. L., History and the Homeric Iliad (1959, Berkeley)

  Parry, Milman, The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry (Oxford, 1970)

  Schein, S., The Mortal Hero (Berkeley, 1984)

  _____, ed., Reading the Odyssey (Princeton, 1996)

  Silk, Michael, The Iliad (Cambridge, 1987)

  Stanford, W. B., The Ulysses Theme (second edition, Oxford, 1958)

  Thalmann, W. M., Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Epic Poetry (Baltimore, 1984)

  Wace, A. J. B., and F. H. Stubbings, eds., A Companion to Homer (London, 1962)

  Ibycus of Rhegion

  Bowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry: From Alcman to Simonides (Oxford, 1961)

  Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric Poetry III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and Others (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991)

  Mimnermus of Colophon

  Allen, Archibald, The Fragments of Mimnermus: Text and Commentary, Palingenesia 44 (Stuttgart, 1993)

  Edmonds, J. M., Elegy and Iambus I (London, 1931)

  West, M. L., Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (New York/Berlin, 1974)

  Pindar of Thebes

  Bowra, C. M., Pindar (Oxford, 1964)

  _____, The Odes of Pindar (Harmondsworth, 1969)

  Bundy, E. L., Studia Pindarica (Berkeley, 1962)

  Carey, C., A Commentary on Five Odes of Pindar (New York, 1981)

  Carne-Ross, D. S., Pindar (New Haven, 1985)

  Crotty, Kevin, Song and Action: The Victory Odes of Pindar (Baltimore, 1982)

  Fennell, C. A. M., Pindar: The Olympian and Pythian Odes (Cambridge, 1893)

  Gildersleeve, B. L., Pindar: The Olympian and Pythian Odes (New York, 1890)

  Kurke, Leslie, The Traffic in Praise: Pindar and the Poetics of Social Economy (Ithaca,
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  Lattimore, Richmond, The Odes of Pindar (Chicago, 1947)

  Lefkowitz, Mary, The Victory Ode: An Introduction (Park Ridge, New Jersey, 1976)

  Mullen, W., Pindar and the Dance (Princeton, 1982)

  Nagy, Gregory, Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore, 1990)

  Nisetich, Frank J., Pindar and Homer (Baltimore, 1989)

  _____, translator, Pindar’s Victory Songs (Baltimore, 1980)

  Norwood, C., Pindar (Berkeley, 1945)

  Race, William H., ed., Pindar: Olympian Odes, Pythian Odes (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1997)

  Race, William H., editor, Pindar: Nemean Odes, Isthmian Odes, Fragments (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1997)

  Steiner, Deborah, The Crown of Song: Metaphor in Pindar (New York, 1986)

  Sappho of Eressus

  Balmer, Josephine, Classical Women Poets (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1996)

  Barnestone, W., Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets (New York, 1988)

  Burnett, Anne Pippin, Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho (London, 1983)

  Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric Poetry I: Sappho and Alcaeus (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982)

  Chandler, Robert, ed., Sappho (London, 1998)

  Lombardo, Stanley, trans., Sappho: Poems and Fragments (Indianapolis, 2002)

  Page, D. L., Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford, 1979)

  Reynolds, Margaret, ed., The Sappho Companion (London, 2000)

  Semonides of Amorgos

  Barnstone, Willis, Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets (New York, 1988)

  Edmonds, J. M., Elegy and Iambus II (London, 1931)

  Gerber, Douglas E., Greek Iambic Poetry (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999)

  Lloyd-Jones, Hugh, ed., trans. & comm., Females of the Species: Semonides on Women (Park Ridge, New Jersey, 1975)

  Page, D. L., Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge, 1981)

  Simonides of Cos

  Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric Poetry III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and Others (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991)

  Molyneux, J. H., Simonides: A Historical Study (Wauconda, Illinois, 1992)

  Page, D. L., Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge, 1981)

  Solon of Athens

  Edmonds, J. M., Elegy and Iambus I (London, 1931)

  Linforth, I. M., Solon the Athenian (Berkeley, 1919)

  Murray, Oswyn, Early Greece (London, 1980)

  Stesichorus of Himera