Editing Mimnermus (section)

==Nanno==
[[File:Aulos player Louvre G313.jpg|left|thumb|The [[aulos]] was an instrument that might accompany the singing of elegies ([[Brygos Painter]], Attic red-figured kylix, ca. 490 BC)]]
Unlike epic and lyric verse, which were accompanied by stringed instruments (the [[cithara]] and [[barbiton]] respectively), elegy was accompanied by a wind instrument (the [[aulos]]) and its performance therefore required at least two people—one to sing and one to play.<ref>J.P. Barron and P.E. Easterling, "Early Greek Elegy", P. Easterling and B. Knox (ed.s), ''The Cambridge History of Classical Literature:Greek Literature'', Cambridge University Press (1985), page 128</ref> Ancient accounts associate Mimnermus with a female aulos player, Nanno (Ναννώ), and one makes him her lover (see quote from [[Hermesianax (poet)|Hermesianax]] in [[Mimnermus#Comments by other poets|Comments by other poets]] below). Another ancient source indicates that Mimnermus was a [[Pederasty in ancient Greece|pederast]],<ref>Alexander Aetolus fr. 5.4–5 Powell ap. Ath. 15.699b, cited by Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb (1999), page 77</ref> which is consistent with conventional sexual themes in Greek elegy. However, as noted by [[Martin Litchfield West]], Mimnermus could have been a pederast and yet still have composed elegies about his love for Nanno: "Greek pederasty&nbsp;... was for the most part a substitute for heterosexual love, free contacts between the sexes being restricted by society."<ref>Martin Litchfield West, ''Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus'', Walter de Gruyter and Co. (1974), page 75</ref> Mimnermus apparently was also capable of playing all by himself—Strabo described him as "both a pipe-player and an elegiac poet".<ref>Strabo 14.1.28, cited by Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb (1999), page 72</ref> According to the poet [[Hipponax]], Mimnermus when piping used the melancholy "fig-branch strain," apparently a traditional melody played while [[scapegoat]]s were ritually driven from town, whipped with fig branches.<ref>Pseudo-Plutarch ''de musica'' 8.1133f = Hipponax fr. 153 W., cited and annotated by Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb (1999), page 77</ref> 
[[File:ManisaAglayanKayaWeepingStoneTurkey.jpg|right|thumb|Weeping Stone, Mount Sipylos—associated with the tragic figure of [[Niobe]].]]

Ancient commentators sometimes refer to a work called ''Nanno'' and there is one clear reference to a work called ''Smyrneis''. Modern scholars have concluded that these could be the two books mentioned by Porphyrion. The ''Nanno'' appears to have been a collection of short poems on a variety of themes (not just love), whereas the ''Smyrneis'' appears to have been a quasi-epic about Smyrna's confrontation with the Lydians. A cryptic comment by the Hellenistic poet Callimachus (see [[Mimnermus#Comments by other poets|Comments by other poets]] below) also seems to refer to those two books, commending one for "sweetness" and distinguishing it from "the great lady". The latter seems to be a reference to ''Smyrneis'', whereas the sweet verses—apparently the slender, economical kind of verses on which Callimachus modelled his own poetry—appear to refer to ''Nanno''. However, the comment is preserved as an incomplete fragment and modern scholars are not unanimous in their interpretation of it.<ref>A. Allen, ''The Fragments of Mimnermus: Text and Commentary'', (Stuttgart 1993) pages 146–56</ref> Another Callimachus fragment has been interpreted as proof that Mimnermus composed some [[Iambus (genre)|iambic verse]] but this conjecture has also been disputed.<ref>Douglas E. Gerber, ''A Companion to Greek Lyric Poets'', Brill (1997) page 111</ref>