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An ode is a type of lyric poetry, with its origins in Ancient Greece. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also enter.
Bacchylides was a Greek lyric poet. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets, which included his uncle Simonides. The elegance and polished style of his lyrics have been noted in Bacchylidean scholarship since at least Longinus. Some scholars have characterized these qualities as superficial charm. He has often been compared unfavourably with his contemporary, Pindar, as "a kind of Boccherini to Pindar's Haydn". However, the differences in their styles do not allow for easy comparison, and translator Robert Fagles has written that "to blame Bacchylides for not being Pindar is as childish a judgement as to condemn ... Marvell for missing the grandeur of Milton". His career coincided with the ascendency of dramatic styles of poetry, as embodied in the works of Aeschylus or Sophocles, and he is in fact considered one of the last poets of major significance within the more ancient tradition of purely lyric poetry. The most notable features of his lyrics are their clarity in expression and simplicity of thought, making them an ideal introduction to the study of Greek lyric poetry in general and to Pindar's verse in particular.
Asopus is the name of four different rivers in Greece and one in Turkey. In Greek mythology, it was also the name of the gods of those rivers. Zeus carried off Aegina, Asopus' daughter, and Sisyphus, who had witnessed the act, told Asopus that he could reveal the identity of the person who had abducted Aegina, but in return Asopus would have to provide a perennial fountain of water at Corinth, Sisyphus' city. Accordingly, Asopus produced a fountain at Corinth, and pursued Zeus, but had to retreat for fear of Zeus' terrible thunderbolt.
HieronI was the son of Deinomenes, the brother of Gelon and tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily, from 478 to 467 BC. In succeeding Gelon, he conspired against a third brother, Polyzelos.
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Pindar was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least until the 1896 discovery of some poems by his rival Bacchylides; comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of only the poet himself. His poetry, while admired by critics, still challenges the casual reader and his work is largely unread among the general public.
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The Greek lyric poet Pindar composed odes to celebrate victories at all four Panhellenic Games. Of his fourteen Olympian Odes, glorifying victors at the Ancient Olympic Games, the First was positioned at the beginning of the collection by Aristophanes of Byzantium since it included praise for the games as well as of Pelops, who first competed at Elis. It was the most quoted in antiquity and was hailed as the "best of all the odes" by Lucian. Pindar composed the epinikion in honour of his then patron Hieron I, tyrant of Syracuse, whose horse Pherenikos and its jockey were victorious in the single horse race in 476 BC.
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References
- The Extant Odes of Pindar translated by Ernest Myers, Page 69, ISBN 978-1-4353-8274-9 (2008)
- Bockh and Dissen on Pindar, I. c.; Diod. xi. 70; Paus. iv. 24. § 5, ed. Bekker; Athen. xiii. p. 573
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Smith, William, ed. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology .{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
