In Greek mythology, the Pierian Spring of Macedonia was sacred to the Pierides and the Muses. As the metaphorical source of knowledge of art and science, it was popularized by a couplet in Alexander Pope's 1711 poem An Essay on Criticism : "A little learning is a dang'rous thing; / Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."
The Pierian spring is sometimes confused with the Castalian Spring, as it was by Lord Chesterfield who misquotes Alexander Pope in Letters to His Son . [1]
The sacred spring was said to be near ancient Leivithra in Pieria, a region of ancient Macedonia, also the location of Mount Olympus, and believed to be the home and the seat of worship of Orpheus. [2] The Muses "were said to have frolicked about the Pierian springs soon after their birth". [3] [4] The spring is believed to be a fountain of knowledge that inspires whoever drinks from it.
The name of the spring comes from the Pierides, the gaggle of girls (daughters of King Pierus) who sought a contest with the Muses. When they lost, they were turned into magpies. Ovid tells this tale after explaining the origin of the Heliconian spring in his 8 AD narrative poem Metamorphoses V. The metamorphoses into magpies comes at the end of the book:
The greatest of our number ended thus her learned songs; and with concordant voice the chosen Nymphs adjudged the Deities, on Helicon who dwell, should be proclaimed the victors. But the vanquished nine began to scatter their abuse; to whom rejoined the goddess; 'Since it seems a trifling thing that you should suffer a deserved defeat, and you must add unmerited abuse to heighten your offence, and since by this appears the end of our endurance, we shall certainly proceed to punish you according to the limit of our wrath.' But these Emathian sisters laughed to scorn our threatening words; and as they tried to speak, and made great clamour, and with shameless hands made threatening gestures, suddenly stiff quills sprouted from out their finger-nails, and plumes spread over their stretched arms; and they could see the mouth of each companion growing out into a rigid beak. – And thus new birds were added to the forest. – While they made complaint, these Magpies that defile our groves, moving their stretched-out arms, began to float, suspended in the air. And since that time their ancient eloquence, their screaming notes, their tiresome zeal of speech have all remained. [5]
An early reference to the Pierian spring is found in the Satyricon of Petronius, from the 1st century AD, at the end of section 5
His animum succinge bonis: sic flumine largo | Come! Gird up thy soul! Inspiration will then force a vent |
—Translated (by W.C. Firebaugh) [7] |
Sappho, too, refers to the roses of the Pierian spring, in her poem "To One Who Loved Not Poetry," in the mid-600 B.C.
κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσῃ οὐδέ ποτα | But thou shalt ever lie dead, |
Lines 215 to 232 of Pope's poem read:
The opening stanza appears in Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 , as Fire Captain Beatty chastizes Guy Montag, the protagonist, about reading books, which are forbidden in the society of the novel.
In his poem "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley", Ezra Pound refers to Pierian "roses" in a critique of the cheap aesthetic of his time, which in his opinion has replaced a true appreciation of art and knowledge:
Conduct, on the other hand, the soul
"Which the highest cultures have nourished"
To Fleet St. where
Dr. Johnson flourished;
Beside this thoroughfare
The sale of half-hose has
Long since superseded the cultivation
Of Pierian roses.
Sir William Jones (1746–1794) also made reference to "the fam'd Pierian rill" (a brook or rivulet) in his 1763 poem about the origin of chess, "Caissa".
Henry Miller mentions the Pierian Spring in Moloch: or, This Gentile World , written in 1927–28 and published posthumously in 1992.
In Dorothy Parker's poem, "The Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk", the narrator reminisces about the scandal that was her "neglect of the waters Pierian" in favor of "the habit of love". [9]
In the 1986 David Cronenberg film The Fly , the protagonist Seth Brundle succumbs to madness and disease as the result of a science experiment. He rants at the short-sightedness of his lover, proclaiming "drink deep, or taste not the plasma spring!"
In the 2018 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Nikolai says "A little learning is a dangerous thing, drink deep or taste not the Pieran Spring, so goes the poem. I understand its meaning". He is referring to the journey ahead, leading to the finale of the Aether Zombies storyline.
The Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology, which was one of the events that led up to the Trojan War, and in later versions to the foundation of Rome.
In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a hunter from Thespiae in Boeotia who was known for his beauty which was noticed by all, regardless of gender. According to the best known version of the story, by Ovid, Narcissus rejected all advances, eventually falling in love with a reflection in a pool of water, tragically not realizing its similarity, entranced by it. In some versions, he beat his breast purple in agony at being kept apart from this reflected love, and in his place sprouted a flower bearing his name.
Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis, the capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a "poem and a mistake", but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were related orally for centuries in ancient Greek culture.
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The Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his magnum opus. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar in a mythico-historical framework comprising over 250 myths, 15 books, and 11,995 lines.
The Satyricon, Satyriconliber, or Satyrica, is a Latin work of fiction believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius in the late 1st century AD, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as Titus Petronius. The Satyricon is an example of Menippean satire, which is different from the formal verse satire of Juvenal or Horace. The work contains a mixture of prose and verse ; serious and comic elements; and erotic and decadent passages. As with The Golden Ass by Apuleius, classical scholars often describe it as a Roman novel, without necessarily implying continuity with the modern literary form.
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An Essay on Criticism is one of the first major poems written by the English writer Alexander Pope (1688–1744), published in 1711. It is the source of the famous quotations "To err is human; to forgive, divine", "A little learning is a dang'rous thing", and "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread".
The Cicones or Ciconians were a Homeric Thracian tribe, whose stronghold in the time of Odysseus was the town of Ismara, located at the foot of mount Ismara, on the south coast of Thrace. They are mentioned in book two of the Iliad as having joined the war on the side of the Trojans, led by Euphemus. In book nine of Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus and his men take Ismara by surprise and slay most of the Ciconian men they come across, taking Ciconian women as slaves. Later Ciconian reinforcements arrive and attack the invading Achaeans, killing so many of them that Odysseus and his men are forced to flee in their ships. Six men of each of Odysseus' ships were killed:
When I had set sail thence the wind took me first to Ismarus, which is the city of the Cicons. There I sacked the town and put the people to the sword. We took their wives and also much booty which we divided equitably amongst us, so that none might have reason to complain. I then said that we had better make off at once, but my men very foolishly would not obey me, so they stayed there drinking much wine and killing great numbers of sheep and oxen on the sea shore. Meanwhile the Cicons cried out for help to other Cicons who lived inland. These were more in number, and stronger, and they were more skilled in the art of war, for they could fight, either from chariots or on foot as the occasion served; in the morning, therefore, they came as thick as leaves and bloom in summer, and the hand of heaven was against us, so that we were hard pressed. They set the battle in array near the ships, and the hosts aimed their bronze-shod spears at one another. So long as the day waxed and it was still morning, we held our own against them, though they were more in number than we; but as the sun went down, towards the time when men loose their oxen, the Cicons got the better of us, and we lost half a dozen men from every ship we had; so we got away with those that were left.
In Greek mythology, Calliope is the Muse who presides over eloquence and epic poetry; so called from the ecstatic harmony of her voice. Hesiod and Ovid called her the "Chief of all Muses".
Endymion is a poem by John Keats first published in 1818 by Taylor and Hessey of Fleet Street in London. John Keats dedicated this poem to the late poet Thomas Chatterton. The poem begins with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever". Endymion is written in rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. Keats based the poem on the Greek myth of Endymion, the shepherd beloved of the moon goddess Selene. The poem elaborates on the original story and renames Selene "Cynthia".
The Pieres were a Thracian tribe connected with the Brygi, that long before the archaic period in Greece occupied the narrow strip of plain land, or low hill, between the mouths of the Peneius and the Haliacmon rivers, at the foot of the great woody steeps of Mount Olympus. This region was named after them as Pieria.
Metamorphoses is a play by the American playwright and director Mary Zimmerman, adapted from the classic Ovid poem Metamorphoses. The play premiered in 1996 as Six Myths at Northwestern University and later the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago. The play opened off-Broadway in October 2001 at the Second Stage Theatre. It transferred to Broadway on 21 February 2002 at the Circle in the Square Theatre produced by Roy Gabay and Robyn Goodman. That year it won several Tony Awards.
Salmacis or Salmakis was the name of a fountain or spring located in modern-day Bodrum, Turkey. According to some classical authors, the water had the reputation of making men effeminate and soft. Ovid famously recounts the myth in his story about Hermaphroditus and the nymph of the spring Salmacis.
Mount Olympus is an extensive massif near the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, between the regional units of Larissa and Pieria, about 80 km (50 mi) southwest from Thessaloniki. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks and deep gorges. The highest peak, Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917.727 metres (9,572.60 ft) and is the highest peak in Greece, and one of the highest peaks in Europe in terms of topographic prominence.
Leibethra or Libethra, in the modern pronunciation Leivithra was an ancient Macedonian city at the foot of Mount Olympus, near the present settlement of Skotina. Archaeologists have discovered tombs there from the late Bronze Age containing rich burial objects. Leivithra played a remarkable role in the history of Pieria.
In Greek mythology, Orpheus was a Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned poet and, according to the legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, and even descended into the underworld of Hades, to recover his lost wife Eurydice.
James Cawthorn was born in Sheffield on 4 November 1719 and died in Tonbridge on 15 April 1761. A school master in holy orders, he was a minor English poet and imitator of Alexander Pope.
In Greek mythology, the Pierides or Emathides (Ἠμαθίδες) were the nine sisters who defied the Muses in a contest of song and, having been defeated, were turned into birds. The Muses themselves are sometimes called by this name.