Ancient Greek Lyrics

Anakreo

107 anakreon Anakreon The only great Ionian monodist was born in Teos in Asia Minor around 572 bce. Soon after the capture of Sardis by the Persians in 541 bce Anakreon fled with his fellow townsmen to Abdera in Thrace, and established a colony there. “On a Virgin” may date from this period. The Tyrant of Samos, Polykrates, invited him to come and teach his son music and poetry. Anakreon and Ibykos thus both were poetic luminaries of the court of Samos. Anakreon in particular seems temperamentally suited to the sophisticated conviviality and eroticism which was the Polykratean style. In 522 bce Polykrates was killed by Persian treachery, and Anakreon went to Athens—in a boat, it is said, sent especially for him by Hipparchos, brother of the reigning Athenian tyrant Hippias. Hipparchos, who was a sort of cultural commissar under his brother, seems to have fostered a style of life much like that at Samos under Polykrates. Upon the assassination of Hipparchos in 514 bce Anakreon moved to Thessaly for a time, but was then received back in Athens (now a democracy) with apparently no hard feelings over his earlier friendship with the tyrants. During this period he was a friend of Xanthippos , the father of Perikles. Anakreon died at the age of eighty-five, probably soon after 490 bce. The legend was that he choked, appropriately , on a grape pip. The works of Anakreon, in six books, consisted of lyrics (mainly monodic), iambics and elegiacs. The bulk of the surviving fragments are lyric. The language of Anakreon is almost entirely the Ionian of his day. The most remarkable feature of the poetry of Anakreon, the one most commented on, is its varying tone of playfulness, sophistication , detachment or irony (as seen, for instance, in “The Vision of Love,” “On an Old Lover” and “Preparations for Love”). His influence in later poetry has probably been greater than that of either Alkaios or Sappho. The numerous two-dimensional projections in the Anakreonteia are often delightful, but sweet, not savory. Horace adapted some themes. But the poetry of Renaissance France and England is the locus of the most flourishing Anakreonism . Even though filtered in large part through the Anakreonteia, The Greek Period 108 the poet’s manner is still perceptible in Ronsard, Herrick, Ben Jonson and others. Anakreon’s poetic works are entirely erotic. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations The grammarian Didymos wrote four thousand books . . . in which he discusses whether Anakreon was more of a rake than a sot, whether Sappho was a prostitute, and other questions the answers to which you should forget if you knew them. Seneca, Letters to Lucilius Stranger, passing near the tomb of Anakreon, pour me a libation as you approach, for in life I was a drunkard. Anonymous Artemis On my knees I speak to you, Artemis, hunter of deer, blond child of Zeus and queen of roaming beasts. From pools of the river Lethaios you gaze across a city of brave men. Serenity. You are a shepherd of no flock of savage citizens. Dice The dice of love are shouting and madness. The Vision of Love On easy wings I glide to Olympos where I seek my master Eros, but he no longer lets me run down warm women as in my doghood days: he sees my graying beard and passes me by, 109 anakreon while I stand transfixed in the wind made by his wings of quivering gold. On an Old Lover Eros, the blond god of lovers, strikes me with a purple ball and asks me to play with a woman wearing colorful sandals, but she is from beautiful Lesbos, and scorns my white hair, and turning her back runs gaping behind another woman. On a Virgin My Thracian foal, why do you glare with disdain and then shun me absolutely as if I knew nothing of this art? I tell you I could bridle you with tight straps, seize the reins and gallop you around the posts of the pleasant course. But you prefer to graze on the calm meadow, or frisk and gambol gayly—having no manly rider to break you in. Preparations for Love Bring out water and wine and an armful of flowers. I want the proper setting when I spar a few rounds with love. Knockout Eros, the blacksmith of love, smashed me with a giant hammer and doused me in the cold river. The Greek...