Greek Lyric, Volume IV: Bacchylides, Corinna, and Others

by Bacchylides, Corinna, David A. Campbell (Translator)

Bacchylides, nephew of Simonides and rival of Pindar, wrote choral poetry of many types. We have a number of his victory odes--poems celebrating victories in athletic contests--as well as dithyrambs and other hymns. He was a master of the captivating narrative. Also represented in this volume is the Boeotian Corinna, whose work, versions of local myths, survives in greater quantity than that of any other Greek woman poet except Sappho. Ancient authorities regarded Corinna as an older contemporary and mentor of Pindar; but some modern scholars place her later, in the third century BCE. Other women are here too: Myrtis, also from Boeotia; Telesilla of Argos, famous for her military leadership as well as her hymns; the shadowy Charixena; and Praxilla of Sicyon, author of choral poems and drinking songs.

David Campbell gives all the extant verse of these poets, along with the ancients' accounts of their lives and works. This fourth volume of his much-praised edition of Greek lyric poetry also includes Timocreon of Rhodes, pentathlete and writer of invective; Diagoras of Melos, choral poet and alleged atheist; and Ion of Chios. Sophocles is represented by fragments of his paean "Asclepius," Euripides by the few surviving lines of his ode for Alcibiades' dazzling victory in the chariot race at Olympia.

This is the fourth in a five-volume edition of Greek lyric poets. Sappho and Alcaeus, the illustrious singers of sixth-century Lesbos, are in the first. Volume II contains the work of Anacreon, composer of solo song; the "Anacreontea"; and the earliest writers of choral poetry, notably the seventh-century Spartans Alcman and Terpander. Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and other sixth-century poets are in Volume III. The last volume includes the new school of dithyrambic poets (mid-fifth to mid-fourth century), together with the anonymous poems: drinking songs, children's songs, cult hymns, and others.

Genres: Poetry, Ancient

432 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Unknown]

(Dawn), leaving (the waters) of Ocean, (drew from the sky) the moon’s holy light, while the Seasons (come) from immortal Zeus among spring’s flowers. —Corinna, 690

Since you are mortal, you must foster two thoughts: that tomorrow will be the only day on which you see the sun's light, and that for fifty years you will live out a life steeped in wealth. —Bacchylides, 3

The sweet gift of the violet-crowned Muses sent for your adornment . . . —Bacchylides, 5

But they never persuaded the heart in your breast. —Praxilla, 748

__________
Corinna
Corinna, daughter of Achelodorus and Procatia, from Thebes or Tanagra, pupil of Myrtis; nicknamed Myia, ‘Fly’; lyric poetess; said to have defeated Pindar five times; wrote five books and epigrams and lyric nomes. —Suda (1)

When Pindar was still young and flaunting his eloquence, Corinna warned him that he was no poet: instead of introducing myths, the true business of poetry, he based his works on rare words, extensions of meaning, paraphrases, melodies and rhythms, all mere embellishment. Pindar took her advice to heart with a vengeance and composed the famous song, ’Shall we sing of Isemnys or gold-distaffed Melia or Cadmus or the holy race of Sown Men or dark-snooded Thebe or the all-daring might of Heracles or the glorious honour of Dionysus . . . ?’ When he showed it to Corinna, she laughed and said that one should sow with the hand, not the whole sack. For Pindar has inf ac missed together a jumbled hotchpotch of myths and emptied it into his song. —Plutarch, On the Glory of Athens (2)

When the Poet Pindar was competing in Thebes, he encountered ignorant audiences and was defeated five times by Corinna. By way of exposing their lack of poetic judgement he called Corinna a sow. —Aelian (3)

The tomb of Corinna, the only lyric poet of Tanagra, is in a conspicuous part of the city, and in the gymnasium there is a painting of her tying her hair back with a ribbon to mark the victory she won over Pindar in Thebes with a lyric poem. —Pausansias (4)

. . . having adorned (with my art?) stories from out father’s time . . . (655, fr.1)

Are you asleep for ever? (657)

Thespia of the beautiful offspring, lover of strangers, loved by the Muses. (674)
__________
Timocreon
Muse, spread the fame of this song among the Greeks, as is fitting and just. (728)
__________
Bacchylides
I am known also for providing the Muses’ art in abundance. (7)

Alternatively: as the monkey is taken seriously by children although it is worthless, so lt Bacchylides enjoy high regard among foolish children but be a monkey in your wise judgement. (9)

. . . and fruitful remnants from his honey-dropping Muses . . . —Palatine Anthology (13)

You, Pindar, holy mouth of the Muses . . . —Palatine Anthology (14)

With equal longing does the wealthy man yearn for great things, the poorer man for less; but to have ready access to everything brings no pleasure to mortals: they are always seeking too catch what eludes them. (1)

The death that is seen coming is the most hateful to mortals. (3)

Has his share in the violet-haired Muses . . . (3)

Gold is a joy . . . (3)

But a man may not throw aside grey old age and retrieve again his flourishing youth. (3)

What better than to be dear to the gods and win a full share in all manner of blessings. (4)

Masy god not weary of treating you well. (5)

And fate decreed that that be the last of my life. (5)

And as I breathed my last I wept in misery at leaving behind my glorious youth. (5)

The bloom of youth on her neck, still without experience of golden Cyrpis, that enchantress of men. (5)

Their hair luxuriant with garlands . . . (6)

For with the help of truth any matter shines forth. (8)

The god-inspired spokesman of the violet-eyed Muses . . . (9)

Golden violet-crowned Cypris . . . (9)

Bound your blond head with flowers . . . (10)

In gold-rich Olympus you stand beside Zeus . . . (11)

And your hair crowned with garlands of luxuriant flowers . . . (13)

And garlanded with the local adornment of crimson flowers . . . (13)

. . . warms his heart with hope. (13)

She put a purple cloak about him and set on his thick hair the faultless garland . . . dark with roses. (17)

All things come to an end in the long course of time. (18)

Countless paths of ambrosial verses lie open for him who obtains gifts from the Pierian Muses and whose songs are clothes with honour by the violet-eyes maidens, the garland-bearing Graces. (19)

You must travel by the finest road, since you have obtained from Calliope a superlative prize. (19)

Sleep, honey for the mind . . . (Peans, fr.4)

There is one guideline, one path to happiness for mortals: to be able to keep an ungrieving spirit throughout life. The man who busies his mind with a thousand cares, whose heart is hurt day and night for the sake of the future, has fruitless toil. (fr.11)

Theocritus is indeed beautiful: you are not the only one to see it. (fr.18)

The lovely-ankled girl . . . (fr.20A)

When the sweet compulsion of the speeding cups warms the tender hearts of the young men, and hope of the Cyprian, mingling with the gifts of Dionysus, makes their hearts flutter. (fr.20a)

Indicates pure gold to the minds of mortals. (fr.33)

Of the temperaments of men there are ten thousand distinct kinds. (fr.34)

As an outstanding painter makes a face beautiful, so self-restraint adorns a life that is climbing to the heights. (fr.38)

Garland aflame with rose buds . . . (fr.53a)

And no mortal is prosperous all his days. (fr.54)

For the keenly-contested gifts of the Muses do not lite open to all for any comer to carry off. (fr.55)
__________
Ion of Chios
Let us drink and play; let the singing last all night, let there be dancing; begin the jollity with a will; and if any one has a shapely woman waiting to share his bed, he will drink more confidently than the rest. (fr. eleg. 27)

Lacking in good taste . . . (fr. eleg. 32A)

Greetings, Euripides, you who possess night’s eternal chamber among the dark-leaved hollows of Pieria, although you are under the earth, be assured that you will have undying glory, the equal of Homer’s everlasting graces. (Palatine Anthology, i. F.G.E)
__________
Praxilla
. . . nourished on songs by Helicon (3)

Nine Muses were created by great heaven, nine by Earth herself to be an undying joy for mortals. (3)

Lysippus made a bronze statue of Praxilla, although she said nothing worth-while in her poetry. (4)

’Sillier than Praxilla’s Adonis’: used of stupid people. Peraxilla of Sicyon was a lyric poetess, according to Polemon. In her hymns this Praxilla represents Adonis as being asked by those in the underworld what was the most beautiful thing he left behind when he came, and giving as his answer:
The most beautiful thing I leave behind is the sun’s light; second, the shining stars and the moon’s face; also ripe cucumbers and apples and pears.
For anyone who lists cucumbers and the rest alongside sun and moon can only be regarded as feeble minded. (747, Zeonbius, Proverbs)

Under every stone, my friends, look out for a scorpion. (750)]

You who look so beautifully in through the window, with a virgin's head but a married woman’s body beneath . . . (754)
__________
Euripides
A city of high repute . . . (756)

[John Cairns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bacchylides is a good poet, so far as I can judge from the translations. I'm not sure Praxilla is all that silly a poetess if where she came from, Sicyon, means cucumber-bed. After the sun, stars and moon, her home town would be the most beautiful thing to leave behind. That's bringing the poem down to earth like Burns, after poetic conceits of rocks melting wi the sun or seas ganging dry, bringing love down to earth with walking ten thousand miles which is within the realm of possibility if you love somebody. It wasn't Burns who was silly climaxing with that, it was Eliot for thinking it anti-climactic and possibly Zenobius for thinking Praxilla feeble minded. But most interesting was Diagoras, known as the atheist. He accused a fellow poet of stealing his paean. The fellow successfully published the paean as his own. God did not intervene to punish this injustice, so Diagoras wrote of his defection from belief. Accused of impiety, he fled from Athens. The Athenians offered a reward of one talent of silver to his killer, two if the bounty hunter brought him back alive to be killed. Aristophanes smeared Socrates with the impious wish to introduce new gods by calling him a Melian, like Diagoras, in whose poetry there's no impiety. I've often wondered about Diagoras the Atheist and here it all is.

[James Violand · Rating 3 out of 5]

5th Century BC poets, contemporaries of Pindar. You learn of some myths in a few Victory odes and there are a few remnants of once famous poets.