Editing Margites

{{Short description|Ancient Greek poem}}
{{italic title}}
{{For |the synonym of the moth genus |Margitesia{{!}}''Margitesia''}}
The '''''Margites''''' ({{langx|grc|Μαργίτης}}) is a comic mock-epic ascribed to [[Homer]]<ref>[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0058:entry=*margi/ths Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, Margites]</ref> that is largely lost. From references to the work that survived, it is known that its central character is an exceedingly stupid man named Margites (from [[ancient Greek]] {{lang|grc|μάργος}}, ''margos'', "raving, mad; lustful"), who was so dense he did not know which parent had given birth to him.<ref>Stuart Kelly, ''The Book of Lost Books'', New York: Random House, 2005.</ref> His name gave rise to the adjective ''margitomanēs'' ({{lang|grc|μαργιτομανής}}), "mad as Margites", used by [[Philodemus]].<ref>[[Henry George Liddell]] and [[Robert Scott (philologist)|Robert Scott]], ''[[A Greek-English Lexicon]]'' revised edition, Oxford: [[Clarendon Press]], 1940.</ref>

The work, among a mixed genre of works loosely labelled "[[Homerica]]" in antiquity, was commonly attributed to [[Homer]], as by [[Aristotle]] (''Poetics'' 13.92)—"His ''Margites'' indeed provides an analogy: as are the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' to our tragedies, so is the ''Margites'' to our comedies"—and [[Harpocration]].<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2013.01.0002%3Aletter%3Dm%3Aentry%3Dmargites Harpokration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators, § m6]</ref> [[Basil of Caesarea]] writes that the work is attributed to Homer but that he is unsure regarding this attribution.<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2040.tlg002.perseus-grc1:8.#note1 Advice to Young Men on Greek Literature, Basil of Caesarea, § 8]</ref> However, the massive medieval Greek encyclopaedia called the ''[[Suda]]'' attributed the ''Margites'' to [[Pigres of Halicarnassus|Pigres]], a Greek poet of [[Halicarnassus]].

It is written in mixed [[Dactylic hexameter|hexameter]] and [[Iamb (foot)|iambic]] lines, an oddity characteristic also of the ''[[Batrachomyomachia]]'' (likewise attributed to Pigres), which inserts a pentameter line after each hexameter of the ''Iliad'' as a curious literary game.<ref>[[Harry Thurston Peck]], ''Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquity'', New York, 1898.</ref>

''Margites'' was famous in the ancient world, but only the following lines survive:<ref>{{Cite web |title=Margites |url=https://mythagora.com/homerica/poems/margites.html |access-date=2024-12-02 |website=mythagora.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Gambino |first=Megan |date=September 19, 2011 |title=The Top 10 Books Lost to Time |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-top-10-books-lost-to-time-83373197/ |access-date=2024-12-02 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}</ref>
{{quote|There came to [[Colophon (city)|Kolophon]] an old man and divine singer, a servant of the [[Muses]] and of far-shooting [[Apollo|Apollon]]. In his dear hands he held a sweet-toned lyre.

He knew many things but knew all badly... The gods had taught him neither to dig nor to plow, nor any other skill; he failed in every craft.

The fox knows many a wile; but the hedge-hog's one trick can beat them all.}}

Due to the Margites character, the Greeks used the word as an insult to describe foolish and useless people.<ref name = "Harpokration"/><ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2040.tlg002.perseus-grc1:8.#note1 Advice to Young Men on Greek Literature, Basil of Caesarea, § 8]</ref> [[Demosthenes]] called [[Alexander the Great]] Margites in order to insult and degrade him.<ref name = "Harpokration">[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2013.01.0002%3Aletter%3Dm%3Aentry%3Dmargites Harpokration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators, § m6]</ref><ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0026.tlg003.perseus-grc1:160 Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon, §160]</ref><ref name = "Plutach_Demosthenes">[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg054.perseus-grc1:23 Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes, §23]</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
*[[William Smith (lexicographer)|Smith, William]]. ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]]'', 1870, article on Margites, {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20060422030936/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/2057.html v. 2, page 949]}}.
*West, M.L. ''Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati'', vol. II. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. {{ISBN|0-19-814096-7}}.

{{Homer}}
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[[Category:Ancient Greek mock-heroic poems]]
[[Category:Lost poems]]
[[Category:Homer]]
[[Category:Greek words and phrases]]
[[Category:Ancient Greek epic poems]]