Ancient Greek Epigrams: Major Poets in Verse Translation

Chapter 1: Introduction to Ancient Greek Epigrams

1 Chap ter One Introduction to Ancient Greek Epigrams When we think of an epigram, we think of a short, witty poem with a clever ending. The ancient Greeks had a very different conception. Epigrams to them were verses written on something, as the word implies. At least initially, they were poems engraved on tombstones or monuments, or on statues or other offerings to the gods. Many of these inscriptions have survived to the present day in ancient shrines and cemeteries. Like inscriptions on our own memorials and gravestones, they are forthright expressions of patriotism or personal sentiment, sometimes moving but often formulaic and usually short, occasionally consisting of a single line. 2 / Introduction to Ancient Greek Epigrams Prompted by these poems written with some practical aim in view, the Greek poets of the third century bce composed literary epigrams intended not to be inscribed but to be recited and published. Many of these poems were also epitaphs and dedications to gods, at first closely patterned on poems any literate Greek could have read in a temple or by the side of a village road. The poets then began to play with the form of actual inscriptions in clever and amusing poems of great variety. They expanded the range of epitaphs to include, for example, poems about dolphins washed ashore and lying dead on the beach. They wrote fictive inscriptions for fishermen or for elderly women who spun thread for a daily wage, who normally would be too poor to afford a grave marker. At about the same time, Greek poets also began to write epigrams about love. These charming poems are less closely related to inscriptions and probably emerged from the tradition of short songs and verses sung or recited at drinking parties. Greek love epigrams had an immense influence on Latin poets—notably on Catullus, who also wrote love epigrams, and on Propertius and Ovid, who wrote love elegies closely related to the Greek poems in style and theme. Then, much later, at the time of the Roman emperor Nero, the Greek poet Lucillius abandoned epitaphs, love, and practically everything else in favor of satirical epigrams with clever endings. The poems Lucillius wrote provided the thematic models for the Latin poet Martial, whose snappy verse with “point” established the epigram in the form it still has today. The development of the Greek literary epigram is such a strange phenomenon , and these poems are so different from anything else in our tradition, that we are surprised and uncertain when we first encounter them. Why would anyone want to write a fictitious epitaph or dedication to a god? Why write love poems as epigrams and not as lyric poems like those of Sappho? Who were the Greeks of the third century bce, and what forces in their tradition and society led them to express themselves in this particular way? The short answer to these questions is that the Greeks who wrote literary epigrams were much like us, acutely aware of the great masters Introduction to Ancient Greek Epigrams / 3 who came before them, excited by the many possibilities offered to them by their literary heritage, but nearly overwhelmed by the weight of tradition . Every schoolboy knew Homer, and many poets and scholars could recite much of the Iliad and Odyssey from memory. Like contemporary composers who sense Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms looming over their shoulders, Hellenistic Greek poets did not attempt to compete with their predecessors directly but sought alternative means of expression by altering old forms, inventing new genres, and merging one genre with another. From this impetus arose not only the literary epigram but also short comic poems called mimes, mini-epics we now call epyllia, and the whole tradition of pastoral poetry. That is the short answer. For the long answer, I need to say more about Hellenistic Greek culture, which encouraged and nurtured this peculiar art form. I must then explore in greater detail the poems that were actually inscribed, which provided the stimulus for the development of their literary counterparts. This will help us see how simple expressions engraved on stone were turned into literature of a high order. I next review the tradition of lyric verse, drinking songs, and short elegy from which love epigrams emerged, in order to develop an appreciation for the Greek practice of variatio, of taking a theme or mode of expression from one poem and turning...