Stesichorus
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Stesichorus (Στησίχορος, lit. "he who puts up the chorus") was a Greek lyric poet from Himera in Sicily, who lived from 640 BC to 555 BC. He was included in a list of nine respected lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. Like the other nine lyric poets, much of his work is lost, and he is known today through fragments and through descriptions and quotations in later works.
Several poems dealing with the Trojan War are attributed to him, as well as an Oresteia believed to have influenced Aeschylus in his own Oresteia. Fragments also survive from a poem about the monster Geryon, defeated by Herakles in his bid to steal Geryon's red cattle as his Tenth Labor.
Stesichorus is also famous for his palinode and the legend surrounding it: Allegedly, Stesichorus wrote a poem about Helen and the traditional story of the Trojan War, and was immediately blinded. He then composed a palinode to retract his statements about Helen, and his sight was miraculously restored; afterwards he promoted the idea that the real Helen remained in Egypt, while an illusion created by her father Zeus continued on to Troy. Plato in his Phaedrus preserved Stesichorus' palinode, which reads:
That story is not true.
You [Helen] never sailed in the benched ships.
You never went to the city of Troy.[1]
His work is reputed to have paralleled most closely that of Homer. He favored epic themes, but unlike Homer he was also known for his erotic works. Athenaeus mentions that his love songs were well known and were of a kind that were known as paideia and paidika, in other words songs of boy love. (Percy, pp.167-168)
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Plato, Phaedrus
- Greek Lyric III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides and Others (Loeb Classical Library)
- G. O. Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry : A Commentary on Selected Larger Pieces (Alcman, Stesichorus, Sappho, Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon, Simonides, Bacchylides, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides)
- Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
- Percy, William A. Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece, pp146-150
| Nine Lyric Poets | Ancient Greek Literature |
|---|
| Alcman | Sappho | Alcaeus | Anacreon | Stesichorus | Ibycus | Simonides | Pindar | Bacchylides |
