Editing Alcaeus (section)

==Poetry==
The poetic works of Alcaeus were collected into ten books, with elaborate commentaries, by the Alexandrian scholars [[Aristophanes of Byzantium]] and [[Aristarchus of Samothrace]] sometime in the 3rd century BC, and yet his verses today exist only in fragmentary form, varying in size from mere phrases, such as ''wine, window into a man'' (fr. 333) to entire groups of verses and stanzas, such as those quoted below (fr. 346). Alexandrian scholars numbered him in their [[Nine lyric poets|canonic nine]] (one lyric poet per Muse). Among these, [[Pindar]] was held by many ancient critics to be pre-eminent,<ref>[[Quintilian]] [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/10A*.html#1.61 10.1.61]; cf. [[Longinus (literature)|Pseudo-Longinus]] [http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/longinus/desub011.htm#xxxiii 33.5] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110806092832/http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/longinus/desub011.htm#xxxiii |date=2011-08-06 }}.</ref> but some gave precedence to Alcaeus instead.<ref name="digitized1">James Easby-Smith, ''The Songs of Alcaeus'' p. 31</ref> The canonic nine are traditionally divided into two groups, with Alcaeus, Sappho and [[Anacreon]], being 'monodists' or 'solo-singers', with the following characteristics:<ref>Andrew M.Miller (trans.), ''Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation'', Hackett Publishing Co. (1996), Intro. xiii</ref>
* They composed and performed personally for friends and associates on topics of immediate interest to them;
* They wrote in their native dialects (Alcaeus and Sappho in Aeolic dialect, Anacreon in Ionic);
* They preferred quite short, metrically simple stanzas or 'strophes' which they re-used in many poems – hence the 'Alcaic' and 'Sapphic' stanzas, named after the two poets who perfected them or possibly invented them.
The other six of the canonic nine composed verses for public occasions, performed by choruses and professional singers and typically featuring complex metrical arrangements that were never reproduced in other verses. However, this division into two groups is considered by some modern scholars to be too simplistic and often it is practically impossible to know whether a lyric composition was sung or recited, or whether or not it was accompanied by musical instruments and dance. Even the private reflections of Alcaeus, ostensibly sung at dinner parties, still retain a public function.<ref name="university19">{{cite book |first=Gregory |last=Nagy |title=Lyric and Greek Myth (The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology) |editor-first=R. D. |editor-last=Woodward |publisher=University Press |year=2007 |pages=19–51 |url=http://chs.harvard.edu/wa/pageR?tn=ArticleWrapper&bdc=12&mn=2654 |access-date=2009-12-09 |archive-date=2011-07-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719204740/http://chs.harvard.edu/wa/pageR?tn=ArticleWrapper&bdc=12&mn=2654 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Critics often seek to understand Alcaeus in comparison with Sappho:
{{Quotation|If we compare the two, we find that Alcaeus is versatile, Sappho narrow in her range; that his verse is less polished and less melodious than hers; and that the emotions which he chooses to display are less intense.|David Campbell<ref name="David A 1982 page 287">David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), p. 287</ref>}}
{{Quotation|The Aeolian song is suddenly revealed, as a mature work of art, in the spirited stanzas of Alcaeus. It is raised to a supreme excellence by his younger contemporary, Sappho, whose melody is unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled, among all the relics of Greek verse.|Richard Jebb<ref>{{cite book|first=Richard |last=Jebb|title=Bacchylides: the poems and fragments|publisher= [[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1905|page= 29 |url=https://archive.org/stream/bacchylidespoem00jebbgoog#page/n9/mode/1up}}</ref>}}
{{Quotation|In the variety of his subjects, in the exquisite rhythm of his meters, and in the faultless perfection of his style, all of which appear even in mutilated fragments, he excels all the poets, even his more intense, more delicate and more truly inspired contemporary Sappho.|James Easby-Smith<ref name="digitized1"/>}}
The Roman poet, Horace, also compared the two, describing Alcaeus as "more full-throatedly singing"<ref name="classics116">James Michie (trans.), ''The Odes of Horace'', Penguin Classics (1964), p. 116</ref> – see [[Alcaeus of Mytilene#Horace|Horace's tribute]] below. Alcaeus himself seems to underscore the difference between his own 'down-to-earth' style and Sappho's more 'celestial' qualities when he describes her almost as a goddess (as cited above), and yet it has been argued that both poets were concerned with a balance between the divine and the profane, each emphasising different elements in that balance.<ref name="university19"/>

[[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]] exhorts us to "Observe in Alcaeus the sublimity, brevity and sweetness coupled with stern power, his splendid figures, and his clearness which was unimpaired by the dialect; and above all mark his manner of expressing his sentiments on public affairs",<ref>''Imit. 422'', quoted from Easby-Smith in ''Songs of Alcaeus''</ref> while [[Quintilian]], after commending Alcaeus for his excellence "in that part of his works where he inveighs against tyrants and contributes to good morals; in his language he is concise, exalted, careful and often like an orator"; goes on to add: "but he descended into wantonness and amours, though better fitted for higher things".<ref>Quintillian 10.1.63, quoted by D.Campbell in ''G.L.P'', p. 288</ref>

===Poetic genres===
The works of Alcaeus are conventionally grouped according to five genres.
* '''Political songs''': Alcaeus often composed on a political theme, covering the power struggles on Lesbos with the passion and vigour of a partisan, cursing his opponents,<ref>fr. 129</ref> rejoicing in their deaths,<ref name="autogenerated1">fr. 332</ref> delivering blood-curdling homilies on the consequences of political inaction<ref>fr. S262</ref> and exhorting his comrades to heroic defiance, as in one of his 'ship of state' allegories.<ref>fr. 6</ref> Commenting on Alcaeus as a political poet, the scholar [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]] once observed that "if you removed the meter you would find political rhetoric".<ref>''Imit. 422'', quoted by Campbell in ''G.L.P.'', p. 286</ref>
* '''Drinking songs''': According to the grammarian [[Athenaeus]], Alcaeus made every occasion an excuse for drinking and he has provided posterity several quotes in proof of it.<ref>Athenaeus 10.430c</ref> Alcaeus exhorts his friends to drink in celebration of a tyrant's death,<ref name="autogenerated1">fr. 332</ref> to drink away their sorrows,<ref>Frs. 335, 346</ref> to drink because life is short<ref>fr. 38A</ref> and along the lines ''in vino veritas'',<ref>fr. 333</ref> to drink through winter storms<ref>fr. 338</ref> and to drink through the heat of summer.<ref>fr. 347</ref> The latter poem in fact paraphrases verses from [[Hesiod]],<ref>Hesiod ''Op.'' 582–8</ref> re-casting them in Asclepiad meter and Aeolian dialect.
* '''Hymns''': Alcaeus sang about the gods in the spirit of the [[Homeric hymns]], to entertain his companions rather than to glorify the gods and in the same meters that he used for his 'secular' lyrics.<ref>David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), p. 286</ref> There are for example fragments in 'Sapphic' meter praising the [[Dioscuri]],<ref>fr. 34a</ref> [[Hermes]]<ref>fr. 308c</ref> and the river [[Maritsa|Hebrus]]<ref>fr. 45</ref> (a river significant in Lesbian mythology since it was down its waters that the head of [[Orpheus]] was believed to have floated singing, eventually crossing the sea to Lesbos and ending up in a temple of Apollo, as a symbol of Lesbian supremacy in song).<ref>David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), pp. 292–93</ref> According to [[Pomponius Porphyrion]], the hymn to Hermes was imitated by Horace in one of his own 'sapphic' odes (C.1.10: ''Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis'').<ref>David Campbell, 'Monody', in ''The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Greek Literature'', P. Easterling and E. Kenney (eds), Cambridge University Press (1985), p. 213</ref>
* '''Love songs''': Almost all Alcaeus's amorous verses, mentioned with disapproval by Quintilian above, have vanished without trace. There is a brief reference to his love poetry in a passage by [[Cicero]].<ref>Cicero, ''Tusc. Disp.'' 4.71</ref> [[Horace]], who often wrote in imitation of Alcaeus, sketches in verse one of the Lesbian poet's favourite subjects – Lycus of the black hair and eyes (C.1.32.11–12: ''nigris oculis nigroque/crine decorum''). It is possible that Alcaeus wrote amorously about Sappho, as indicated in an earlier quote.<ref>fr. 384; however, Liberman (1999) reads "Aphro" (Ἄφροι; a diminutive of "Aphrodite"), instead of "Sappho".</ref>
* '''Miscellaneous''': Alcaeus wrote on such a wide variety of subjects and themes that contradictions in his character emerge. The grammarian Athenaeus quoted some verses about perfumed ointments to prove just how unwarlike Alcaeus could be<ref>fr. 362, Athenaeus 15.687d</ref> and he quoted his description of the armour adorning the walls of his house<ref>fr. 357</ref> as proof that he could be unusually warlike for a lyric poet.<ref>Athenaeus 14.627a</ref> Other examples of his readiness for both warlike and unwarlike subjects are lyrics celebrating his brother's heroic exploits as a Babylonian mercenary<ref>fr. 350</ref> and lyrics sung in a rare meter (Sapphic Ionic in minore) in the voice of a distressed girl,<ref>fr. 10B</ref> "Wretched me, who share in all ills!" – possibly imitated by Horace in an ode in the same meter (C.3.12: ''Miserarum est neque amori dare ludum neque dulci'').<ref name="literature214">David Campbell, 'Monody', in P. Easterling and E. Kenney (eds), ''The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Greek Literature'', Cambridge University Press (1985), p. 214</ref> He also wrote Sapphic stanzas on Homeric themes but in un-Homeric style, comparing [[Helen of Troy]] unfavourably with [[Thetis]], the mother of [[Achilles]].<ref>fr. 42</ref>

===A drinking poem (fr. 346)===
The following verses demonstrate some key characteristics of the Alcaic style (square brackets indicate uncertainties in the ancient text):
{{Verse translation|italicsoff=y|
{{lang|grc|πώνωμεν· τί τὰ λύχν' ὀμμένομεν; δάκτυλος ἀμέρα·
κὰδ δ'ἄερρε κυλίχναις μεγάλαις [αιτα]ποικίλαισ·
οἶνον γὰρ Σεμέλας καὶ Δίος υἶος λαθικάδεον
ἀνθρώποισιν ἔδωκ'. ἔγχεε κέρναις ἔνα καὶ δύο
πλήαις κὰκ κεφάλας, [ἀ] δ' ἀτέρα τὰν ἀτέραν κύλιξ
ὠθήτω...}}<ref>David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), p. 60</ref>
|
Let's drink! Why are we waiting for the lamps? Only an inch of daylight left.
Lift down the large cups, my friends, the painted ones;
for wine was given to men by the son of Semele and Zeus
to help them forget their troubles. Mix one part of water to two of wine,
pour it in up to the brim, and let one cup push the other along...<ref>Andrew M.Miller (trans.), ''Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation'', Hackett Publishing Co. (1996), p. 48</ref>}}

The Greek meter here is relatively simple, comprising the Greater [[Asclepiad (poetry)|Asclepiad]], adroitly used to convey, for example, the rhythm of jostling cups  ({{lang|grc|ἀ δ' ἀτέρα τὰν ἀτέραν}}). The language of the poem is typically direct and concise and comprises short sentences — the first line is in fact a model of condensed meaning, comprising an exhortation ("Let's drink!"), a rhetorical question ("Why are we waiting for the lamps?") and a justifying statement ("Only an inch of daylight left").<ref>David Campbell, "Monody", in ''The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Greek Literature'', P. Easterling and E. Kenney (eds), Cambridge University Press (1985), p. 212</ref> The meaning is clear and uncomplicated, the subject is drawn from personal experience, and there is an absence of poetic ornament, such as simile or metaphor. Like many of his poems (e.g., frs. 38, 326, 338, 347, 350), it begins with a verb (in this case "Let's drink!") and it includes a proverbial expression ("Only an inch of daylight left") though it is possible that he coined it himself.<ref name="David A 1982 page 287"/>

===A hymn (fr. 34)===
Alcaeus rarely used metaphor or simile and yet he had a fondness for the allegory of the storm-tossed ship of state. The following fragment of a hymn to Castor and Polydeuces (the [[Dioscuri]]) is possibly another example of this though some scholars interpret it instead as a prayer for a safe voyage.<ref>David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), pp. 286, 289</ref>
{{poemquote|Hither now to me from your isle of Pelops,
You powerful children of Zeus and Leda,
Showing yourselves kindly by nature, Castor
And Polydeuces!

Travelling abroad on swift-footed horses,
Over the wide earth, over all the ocean,
How easily you bring deliverance from
Death's gelid rigor,

Landing on tall ships with a sudden, great bound,
A far-away light up the forestays running,
Bringing radiance to a ship in trouble,
Sailed in the darkness!}}

The poem was written in [[Sapphic stanza]]s, a verse form popularly associated with his compatriot, Sappho, but in which he too excelled, here paraphrased in English to suggest the same rhythms. There were probably another three stanzas in the original poem but only nine letters of them remain.<ref>David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric'' Vol. I, Loeb Classical Library (1990), p. 247</ref> The 'far-away light' ({{lang|grc|Πήλοθεν λάμπροι}}) is a reference to [[St. Elmo's Fire]], an electrical discharge supposed by ancient Greek mariners to be an epiphany of the Dioscuri, but the meaning of the line was obscured by gaps in the papyrus until reconstructed by a modern scholar; such reconstructions are typical of the extant poetry (see [[Alcaeus of Mytilene#Scholars, fragments and sources|Scholars, fragments and sources]] below). This poem does not begin with a verb but with an adverb (Δευτέ) but still communicates a sense of action. He probably performed his verses at [[Symposium|drinking parties]] for friends and political allies – men for whom loyalty was essential, particularly in such troubled times.<ref name="literature214"/>