© 2020 President and Fellows of Harvard College. 7th century BC) was an Ancient Greek choral lyric poet from Sparta. ἑωσφ[ρ- (?) This item is part of JSTOR collection [6] Usually, the poem praised the victor, but also brought in a myth relating to the victory. ] θνα[ο]ῖσι τέρψ[ν, fr. He describes the yellow color of a woman's hair and the golden chain she wears about her neck; the purple petals of a Kalchas blossom and the purple depths of the sea; the "bright shining" color of the windflower and the multi-colored feathers of a bird as it chews green buds from the vines. The myth tells how Polydeuces kills Hippocoon and his sons on account of their hubris. . This is written often in Alcman 1: ἀείδω (line 39), ὁρῶ (line 40), ϝείποιμί (line 85), ἐρῶ (line 88). A Student's Encyclopedia of Greek Lyric Poetry. [11]), by whom he was eventually emancipated because of his great skill. Alcman's songs were composed in the Doric dialect of Sparta (the so-called Laconian dialect). Antipater of Thessalonica wrote that poets have "many mothers" and that the continents of Europe and Asia both claimed Alcman as their son. Many of these journals are the leading academic publications in their fields and together they form one of the most valuable and comprehensive bodies of research available today. It is the subject of William Butler Yeats' poem Leda and the Swan. There were six books of Alcman's choral poetry in antiquity (c. 50-60 hymns), but they were lost at the threshold of the Medieval Age, and Alcman was known only through fragmentary quotations in other Greek authors until the discovery of a papyrus in 1855(?) When the egg hatched, Leda adopted Helen as her daughter. man-taming . Campbell, David A. Greek Lyric Poetry: A Selection of Early Greek Lyric, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry. Check out using a credit card or bank account with. The British philologist Denys Page comes to the following conclusion about Alcman's dialect in his influential monograph (1951): (i) that the dialect of the extant fragments of Alcman is basically and preponderantly the Laconian vernacular; (ii) that there is no sufficient reason for believing that this vernacular in Alcman was contaminated by features from any alien dialect except the Epic; (iii) that features of the epic dialect are observed (a) sporadically throughout the extant fragments, but especially (b) in passages where metre or theme or both are taken from the Epic, and (c) in phrases which are as a whole borrowed or imitated from the Epic... To judge from his larger fragments, Alcman's poetry was normally strophic: Different metres are combined into long stanzas (9-14 lines), which are repeated several times. © 1965 The Classical Association the Morning Star) and conceivably Ortheia (fr. . ήγει 12s. He is the earliest representative of the Alexandrinian canon of the nine lyric poets. The poem begins with a description of Hieron and his victory. Smyth, Herbert Weir. [18], I were to see whether perchance she were to love me. Campbell suggests this myth might make the point that men can be “blessed in most respects but not in all,” as Hieron had a bad illness indicated in Pindar. Cambridge University Press (2009, Cambridge). 80 ff. Orphic Hymn 34 To Apollon To Apollon Come, O blessed Paian, O slayer of Tityos, O Phoibos, O Lykoreus, giver of riches, illustrious dweller of Memphis, O god to whom we cry “Ie”, 110 ff. He says that songs of Alcman were performed during the Gymnopaedia festival (according to Athenaeus[28]): The chorus-leaders carry [the Thyreatic crowns] in commemoration of the victory at Thyrea at the festival, when they are also celebrating the Gymnopaedia. The myth tells the story of Meleager. . Alcman fr. institution, The Classical Quarterly has a reputation for publishing the highest quality classical scholarship for nearly 100 years. [7] This poem is a good example of epinikion. For example, the assertion that there was little possession of material goods in Sparta – a part of the 'Spartan Mirage' – is disproved by Alcman's observation of various women wearing gold chains. . Polydeuces?) These hymns are sung by choruses of unmarried women, but it is unclear how the partheneia were performed. and Tyrannion2 read χρυσῶ (‛gold’) in the genitive to give the meaning, ‛Nor will anyone find fault with you3 if you stand near gold, nor will gold show you up, but you will surpass it.’. According to Smyth, partheneia were only performed in Dorian countries, for women were given more rights than in Athens or Ionian settlements.[4]. The Swiss scholar Claude Calame (1977) treats them as a type of drama by choruses of girls. 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