text:mimnermus_poems
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- | ====== Mimnermus ====== | + | Elegy and Iambus. with an English Translation by. J. M. Edmonds. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. |
- | “Mimnermus : —Son of Ligyrtiades, | + | ====== Mimnermus: Poems ====== |
+ | |||
+ | “Mimnermus : —Son of Ligyrtiades, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Suidas Lexicon | ||
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- | “Famous Colophonians are Mimnermus the fluteplayer and writer of Elegy, and Xenophanes ... Pindar also mentions Polymnastus ... and according to some writers we must add Homer.” Strabo Geography [Colophon] | + | “Famous Colophonians are Mimnermus the fluteplayer and writer of Elegy, and Xenophanes ... Pindar also mentions Polymnastus ... and according to some writers we must add Homer.” |
+ | |||
+ | Strabo Geography [Colophon] | ||
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- | “And Mimnermus, who after much suffering found such sweet sound and breath in the soft pentameter, he loved Nanno, and oftentime bound about with the mouthpiece of the gray lotuswood2 made revel with Examyes, and vexed the lives of the ever-grievous Hermobius and the hostile Pherecles because he hated the verse he put forth.3” Hermesianax | + | “And Mimnermus, who after much suffering found such sweet sound and breath in the soft pentameter, he loved Nanno, and oftentime bound about with the mouthpiece of the gray lotuswood2 made revel with Examyes, and vexed the lives of the ever-grievous Hermobius and the hostile Pherecles because he hated the verse he put forth.3” |
+ | |||
+ | Hermesianax | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---- | ||
“That parodists were in some repute in Sicily is thus shown by the tragic poet Alexander of Aetolia in an Elegy : ‘... This man came of ancient lineage, for he had known from his youth up how to behave to strangers as friend to friend,4 and had both reached the summit of the verse of Mimnermus5 and become an equal drinker with the lad' | “That parodists were in some repute in Sicily is thus shown by the tragic poet Alexander of Aetolia in an Elegy : ‘... This man came of ancient lineage, for he had known from his youth up how to behave to strangers as friend to friend,4 and had both reached the summit of the verse of Mimnermus5 and become an equal drinker with the lad' | ||
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“ But now [ignorant] backbiters7 who are no friends of the Muse murmur [unseemly] against me because I have not wrought [in honour] either of kings or of [ancient] heroes a single unbroken poem in many thousands of lines, but make one little scroll of verse [as a child might do], though the tens of my years are not few. To the backbiters I say this: ‘You ignorant tribe, whose only skill lies in shrivelling your own hearts, I know well, look you, that I am one of few lines; yet the bountiful Corn-Goddess far surpasses8 the tall oak; and of the two Books of Mimnermus9 it is his short ‘pieces’ that have told us how sweet he is, not the great tall one.10 | “ But now [ignorant] backbiters7 who are no friends of the Muse murmur [unseemly] against me because I have not wrought [in honour] either of kings or of [ancient] heroes a single unbroken poem in many thousands of lines, but make one little scroll of verse [as a child might do], though the tens of my years are not few. To the backbiters I say this: ‘You ignorant tribe, whose only skill lies in shrivelling your own hearts, I know well, look you, that I am one of few lines; yet the bountiful Corn-Goddess far surpasses8 the tall oak; and of the two Books of Mimnermus9 it is his short ‘pieces’ that have told us how sweet he is, not the great tall one.10 | ||
- | Callimachus Causes: | + | Callimachus Causes |
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- | “ ‘The short pieces have told us, the great one has not told us’; he means ‘that Mimnermus is sweet’; ὧδε is to be taken thus: ‘sweet in the little ones.’11” Scholast on the passage | + | “ ‘The short pieces have told us, the great one has not told us’; he means ‘that Mimnermus is sweet’; ὧδε is to be taken thus: ‘sweet in the little ones.’11” |
+ | |||
+ | Scholast on the passage | ||
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- | “Pour thou two ladles as of Nanno and Lyda, one as of the lover' | + | “Pour thou two ladles as of Nanno and Lyda, one as of the lover' |
+ | |||
+ | Poseidippus | ||
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- | “We are told by Chamaeleon in his book On Stesichorus that not only the poems of Homer but of Hesiod and Archilochus, | + | “We are told by Chamaeleon in his book On Stesichorus that not only the poems of Homer but of Hesiod and Archilochus, |
+ | |||
+ | Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner | ||
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- | “If, as Mimnermus believes, there is no joy without love and jests, then you should live in love and jests.” Horace Epistles | + | “If, as Mimnermus believes, there is no joy without love and jests, then you should live in love and jests.” |
+ | |||
+ | Horace Epistles | ||
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- | “I go home a second Alcaeus, on the other' | + | “I go home a second Alcaeus, on the other' |
+ | |||
+ | Horace Epistles | ||
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- | “Mimnermus wrote two brilliant Books.12” Porphyrio on the passage | + | “Mimnermus wrote two brilliant Books.12” |
+ | |||
+ | Porphyrio on the passage | ||
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- | “Alas ! what avails you now to sing high song and cry woe for the walls Amphion' | + | “Alas ! what avails you now to sing high song and cry woe for the walls Amphion' |
+ | |||
+ | Propertius Elegies | ||
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====== The Elegies of Mimnermus ====== | ====== The Elegies of Mimnermus ====== | ||
- | ===== Book i ===== | + | ===== Book I ===== |
- | “Mimnermus: —13 | + | Mimnermus: —13 |
- | But what life would there be, what joy, without golden Aphrodite? May I die when I be no more concerned with secret love and suasive gifts and the bed, such things as are the very flowers of youth, pleasant alike to man and woman. And when dolorous Age cometh, that maketh a man both foul without and evil within, | + | //But what life would there be, what joy, without golden Aphrodite? May I die when I be no more concerned with secret love and suasive gifts and the bed, such things as are the very flowers of youth, pleasant alike to man and woman. And when dolorous Age cometh, that maketh a man both foul without and evil within, |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.1 | + | Stobaeus Anthology [on Aphrodite] |
- | + | ||
- | ” Stobaeus Anthology [on Aphrodite] | + | |
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- | “Mimnermus: — | + | Mimnermus: — |
- | But we, like the leaves that come in the flowery Springtime when they wax so quickly beneath the sunbeams, like them we enjoy the blossoms of youth for a season but an ell long, the Gods giving us knowledge15 neither of evil nor of good; for here beside us stand the black Death-Spirits, | + | //But we, like the leaves that come in the flowery Springtime when they wax so quickly beneath the sunbeams, like them we enjoy the blossoms of youth for a season but an ell long, the Gods giving us knowledge15 neither of evil nor of good; for here beside us stand the black Death-Spirits, |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.2 | + | Stobaeus Anthology [that life is short, of little account, and full of care] |
- | + | ||
- | ” Stobaeus Anthology [that life is short, of little account, and full of care] | + | |
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- | “Mimnermus: — | + | Mimnermus: — |
- | + | ||
- | However fair he may once have been, when the season is overpast he is neither honoured nor loved, nay, not by his own children. | + | |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.3 | + | //However fair he may once have been, when the season is overpast he is neither honoured nor loved, nay, not by his own children.// |
- | ” Stobaeus Anthology [censure of Age] | + | Stobaeus Anthology [censure of Age] |
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- | ===== Book ii Nanno ===== | + | ===== Book II Nanno ===== |
- | “Mimnermus Nanno : — | + | Mimnermus Nanno : — |
- | Zeus gave Tithonus the evil gift of immortal Eld, which is even worse than woeful Death. | + | //Zeus gave Tithonus the evil gift of immortal Eld, which is even worse than woeful Death.// |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.4 | + | Stobaeus Anthology [censure of Age] |
- | + | ||
- | ” Stobaeus Anthology [censure of Age] | + | |
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- | “Mimnermus Nanno : — | + | Mimnermus Nanno : — |
- | [A sudden copious sweat floweth down my flesh and I tremble, when I behold the lovely and pleasant flowering-time of my generation, for I would it were longer lasting;]17 but precious Youth is short-lived as a dream, and woeful and ugly Eld hangeth plumb over our heads, Eld hateful alike and unhonoured, | + | //[A sudden copious sweat floweth down my flesh and I tremble, when I behold the lovely and pleasant flowering-time of my generation, for I would it were longer lasting;]17 but precious Youth is short-lived as a dream, and woeful and ugly Eld hangeth plumb over our heads, Eld hateful alike and unhonoured, |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.5 | + | Stobaeus Anthology [on truth] |
- | + | ||
- | ” Stobaeus Anthology [on truth] | + | |
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- | “Mimnermus Nanno : — | + | Mimnermus Nanno : — |
- | Betwixt thee and me let there be truth, the most righteous of all things. | + | //Betwixt thee and me let there be truth, the most righteous of all things.// |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.6 | + | Stobaeus Anthology [on truth] |
- | + | ||
- | ” Stobaeus Anthology [on truth] | + | |
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“And Homer embroiders the facts merely so far as to make the wandering of the Argonauts extend into the Ocean on their way home. For assuming this to be the case it is natural enough to call the Argo ‘known everywhere, | “And Homer embroiders the facts merely so far as to make the wandering of the Argonauts extend into the Ocean on their way home. For assuming this to be the case it is natural enough to call the Argo ‘known everywhere, | ||
- | ... Nor would even Jason himself have accomplished his direful journey and brought the great Fleece back from Aea,22 fulfilling the grievous task set him by the wicked Pelias, nor would they have come to the fair stream of Ocean; | + | //... Nor would even Jason himself have accomplished his direful journey and brought the great Fleece back from Aea,22 fulfilling the grievous task set him by the wicked Pelias, nor would they have come to the fair stream of Ocean;// |
- | + | ||
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.7 | + | |
and later, | and later, | ||
- | the city of Aeetes, where the beams of the swift Sun are laid up in a golden chamber beside the lips of Ocean, whither the divine Jason went and was gone. | + | //the city of Aeetes, where the beams of the swift Sun are laid up in a golden chamber beside the lips of Ocean, whither the divine Jason went and was gone.// |
- | + | ||
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.8 | + | |
- | + | ||
- | ” | + | |
Strabo Geography | Strabo Geography | ||
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- | “According to the Nanno of Mimnermus, the Sun travels across to the place of his rising in a golden bed made for the purpose by Hephaestus, and the poet hints at the hollow of the Cup. His words are: | + | According to the Nanno of Mimnermus, the Sun travels across to the place of his rising in a golden bed made for the purpose by Hephaestus, and the poet hints at the hollow of the Cup. His words are: |
- | For the Sun's portion is labour every day, nor is there ever any rest either for him or his horses when rosy-fingered Dawn hath left the Ocean and climbed23 the sky; for over the wave in a delightful bed forged of precious gold by the hand of Hephaestus, hollow and with wings, he is carried in pleasant sleep on the face of the waters from the Hesperians' | + | //For the Sun's portion is labour every day, nor is there ever any rest either for him or his horses when rosy-fingered Dawn hath left the Ocean and climbed23 the sky; for over the wave in a delightful bed forged of precious gold by the hand of Hephaestus, hollow and with wings, he is carried in pleasant sleep on the face of the waters from the Hesperians' |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.9 | + | Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner |
- | + | ||
- | ” Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner | + | |
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- | “Colophon was founded by Andraemon of Pylos, as we learn from Mimnermus' | + | Colophon was founded by Andraemon of Pylos, as we learn from Mimnermus' |
+ | |||
+ | Strabo Geography | ||
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- | “When the Smyrnaeans left Ephesus they invaded the district where Smyrna now stands, and expelling the Lelegians who then possessed it, founded Old Smyrna between two and three miles from where the new city stood later. Driven thence by the Aeolians some time afterwards, they took refuge at Colophon and went and recovered their territory with the Colophonians' | + | When the Smyrnaeans left Ephesus they invaded the district where Smyrna now stands, and expelling the Lelegians who then possessed it, founded Old Smyrna between two and three miles from where the new city stood later. Driven thence by the Aeolians some time afterwards, they took refuge at Colophon and went and recovered their territory with the Colophonians' |
- | ... When from the lofty city of Neleian Pylos we came on shipboard to the pleasant land of Asia, and in overwhelming might destroying grievous pride24 sat down at lovely Colophon, thence25 went we forth from beside the wooded river26 and by Heaven' | + | //... When from the lofty city of Neleian Pylos we came on shipboard to the pleasant land of Asia, and in overwhelming might destroying grievous pride24 sat down at lovely Colophon, thence25 went we forth from beside the wooded river26 and by Heaven' |
For a fragment of the Smyrneid see Appendix. | For a fragment of the Smyrneid see Appendix. | ||
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.10 | + | Strabo Geography |
- | + | ||
- | ” Strabo Geography | + | |
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- | “It is said that when Mimnermus wrote:28 | + | It is said that when Mimnermus wrote:28 |
- | Would that the fate of Death might overtake me without disease or woeful trouble at threescore years! | + | //Would that the fate of Death might overtake me without disease or woeful trouble at threescore years!// |
- | + | ||
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.11 | + | |
Solon found fault with him, saying ‘But if thou wilt listen to me so late in the day, erase this, Ligyastades, | Solon found fault with him, saying ‘But if thou wilt listen to me so late in the day, erase this, Ligyastades, | ||
- | ” | ||
Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers: | Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers: | ||
Line 226: | Line 228: | ||
- | “ Mimnermus: | + | Mimnermus: |
- | [Harming neither sojourner nor citizen with deeds of mischief, but living a righteous man,] rejoice your own heart; of your pitiless fellow-townsmen assuredly some will speak ill of you and some good.29 | + | //[Harming neither sojourner nor citizen with deeds of mischief, but living a righteous man,] rejoice your own heart; of your pitiless fellow-townsmen assuredly some will speak ill of you and some good.29// |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.12 | + | Palatine Anthology |
- | ” Palatine Anthology | ||
+ | ---- | ||
- | ---- | ||
+ | Mimnermus, in the Prelude to the Elegiac lines he writes on the battle between the Smyrnaeans and Gyges and his Lydians, makes the original Muses daughters of Heaven and a younger generation children of Zeus. | ||
- | “Mimnermus, | + | 30Pausanias Description of Greece |
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- | “Mimnermus — | + | Mimnermus — |
- | Not his were such feeble might and poor nobility of heart, say my elders who saw him rout the serried ranks of Lydian cavalry in the plain of Hermus, rout them with a spear; never at all would Pallas Athene have had cause to blame the sour might of the heart of such as him, when he sped forward in the van, defying the foeman' | + | //Not his were such feeble might and poor nobility of heart, say my elders who saw him rout the serried ranks of Lydian cavalry in the plain of Hermus, rout them with a spear; never at all would Pallas Athene have had cause to blame the sour might of the heart of such as him, when he sped forward in the van, defying the foeman' |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.13 | + | Stobaeus Anthology [on valour] |
- | + | ||
- | ” Stobaeus Anthology [on valour] | + | |
Line 258: | Line 258: | ||
“: | “: | ||
- | and hard words possess him before men; | + | //and hard words possess him before men;// |
- | + | ||
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.14 | + | |
and | and | ||
- | ever desirous to hear grievous words31 | + | //ever desirous to hear grievous words31// |
- | + | ||
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.15 | + | |
- | + | ||
- | ” | + | |
Etymologicum Magnum βάξις | Etymologicum Magnum βάξις | ||
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- | “compare Mimnermus: | + | compare Mimnermus: |
- | + | ||
- | leading the men of Paeonia, where the race of horses is held in honour32 | + | |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.16 | + | //leading the men of Paeonia, where the race of horses is held in honour32// |
- | ” Scholiast on the Iliad [‘horsehair-crested Paeonians’] | + | Scholiast on the Iliad [‘horsehair-crested Paeonians’] |
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- | “Demetrius of Scepsis also in the 24th Book of the same work (The Forces of the Trojans) speaks of | + | Demetrius of Scepsis also in the 24th Book of the same work (The Forces of the Trojans) speaks of |
Daetes | Daetes | ||
- | |||
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.17 | ||
as a hero honoured among the Trojans and mentioned by Mimnermus.33 | as a hero honoured among the Trojans and mentioned by Mimnermus.33 | ||
- | ” | ||
Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner | Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner | ||
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- | “The ancients seem to vary as to the number of Nioba' | + | “The ancients seem to vary as to the number of Nioba' |
+ | |||
+ | Aelian Historical Miscellany | ||
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- | “If not, Theon here will call in his support Mimnermus, Cydias, and Archilochus, | + | “If not, Theon here will call in his support Mimnermus, Cydias, and Archilochus, |
+ | |||
+ | Plutarch The Face in the Moon [eclipses of the Sun] | ||
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- | “According to Mimnermus, Ismene was killed by Tydeus at Athena' | + | “According to Mimnermus, Ismene was killed by Tydeus at Athena' |
+ | |||
+ | Argument to Sophocles Antigone | ||
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- | “The ‘Troezenian’ is Aphrodite. According to Mimnermus, after her wounding by Diomed she procured the favours of (his wife) Aegialeia for many lovers, and her love for Hippolytus and Cometes son of Sthenelus; and when Diomed went to Argos she plotted against him; whereupon he took sanctuary at the altar of Hera, and fleeing with his companions by night passed into Italy and went to the court of King Daunus who killed him by a trick.” | + | “The ‘Troezenian’ is Aphrodite. According to Mimnermus, after her wounding by Diomed she procured the favours of (his wife) Aegialeia for many lovers, and her love for Hippolytus and Cometes son of Sthenelus; and when Diomed went to Argos she plotted against him; whereupon he took sanctuary at the altar of Hera, and fleeing with his companions by night passed into Italy and went to the court of King Daunus who killed him by a trick.” |
+ | Tzetzes on Lycophron | ||
- | ---- | ||
+ | ---- | ||
- | “‘Lame men,’ etc.: this means that the Amazons maimed their male children by removing either a leg or a hand, and when the Scythians, desiring to come to terms in their war against them, told them that they would find in them no maimed or mutilated bedfellows, their queen | ||
- | Lame men make lusty husbands. | + | ‘Lame men,’ etc.: this means that the Amazons maimed their male children by removing either a leg or a hand, and when the Scythians, desiring to come to terms in their war against them, told them that they would find in them no maimed or mutilated bedfellows, their queen |
- | CURFRAG.tlg-0255.18 | + | //Lame men make lusty husbands.// |
The saying is given by Mimnermus.35 | The saying is given by Mimnermus.35 | ||
- | ” | ||
From a Collection of Proverbs | From a Collection of Proverbs | ||
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