Stesichorus

Stesichorus (Ancient Greek: Στησίχορος, English translation: "he who sets up the chorus, choirmaster") (640 - 555 BC) was a Greek lyric poet from Himera in Sicily, one of the nine lyric poets esteemed by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria as worthy of study.

Life and chronology

Possible chronologic disputes aside, there is a note in the Harvard University Press' Loeb Classical Library's Introduction to Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica (pp. xvi) concerning the story of the death of Hesiod, in which briefly it is told that after Hesiod won a tripod for the contest in song at Chalcis, he "went to Delphi and there was warned that the 'issue of death should overtake him in the fair grove of Nemean Zeus'". Avoiding therefore Nemea on the Isthmus of Corinth, to which he supposed the oracle to refer, Hesiod retired to Oenoe in Locris where he was entertained by Amphiphanes and Ganyctor, sons of a certain Phegeus." This place also being sacred to Nemean Zeus, the poet suspected of seducing their sister was murdered. The Note reads: "She is said to have given birth to the lyrist Stesichorus." Not wishing to late-date Hesiod, there could still be descendant substance to the note. Or "he is "The Son of Hesiod" because he drew heavily on the Hesiodic poems particularly "The Catalogue".^[1] According to the Suda he lived from the 37th Olympiad to the 56th and had two brothers: Mamertinus and Helianax.^[2]

Works

Stesichorus was included in a list of nine respected lyric poets by the scholars of ancient Alexandria. Like the other eight lyric poets, much of his work is lost, and he is known today through fragments and through descriptions and quotations in later works. A very large fragment was found in mummy cartonnage in Lille in the 1960s, and forms the core of the known corpus.

Several poems dealing with the Trojan War are attributed to him, as well as an Oresteia believed to have influenced Aeschylus in his own Oresteia. Fragments also survive from a poem about the monster Geryon, defeated by Herakles in his bid to steal Geryon's red cattle as his Tenth Labor.

Stesichorus is also famous for his palinode and the legend surrounding it: Allegedly, Stesichorus wrote a negative poem about Helen and the traditional story of the Trojan War, and was immediately blinded. He then composed a palinode to retract his statements about Helen, and his sight was miraculously restored; afterwards he promoted the idea that the real Helen remained in Egypt, while an illusion created by her father Zeus continued on to Troy. Plato in his Phaedrus preserved an introductory fragment of Stesichorus' palinode, which reads:

That story is not true.
You [Helen] never sailed in the benched ships.
You never went to the city of Troy.^[3]

His work is reputed to have paralleled most closely that of Homer. He favored epic themes, but unlike Homer he was also known for his erotic works.

References

Further reading

• Barrett, W. S., Greek Lyric, Tragedy, and Textual Criticism: Collected Papers, edited for publication by M. L. West (Oxford & New York, 2007)
• Carson, Anne, Autobiography of Red. Modern retelling of Stesichoros' fragments.
• Plato, Phaedrus.
• M. Davies, Poetarum Melicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (PMGF) vol. 1, Oxford 1991: testimonies of his life and works pp. 134-151, fragments pp. 152-234 (previously D. L. Page, Poetae Melici Graeci (PMG), Oxford 1962, and Supplementum Lyricis Graecis (SLG), Oxford 1974).
• D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides and Others (Loeb Classical Library).
• G. O. Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry: A Commentary on Selected Larger Pieces (Alcman, Stesichorus, Sappho, Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon, Simonides, Bacchylides, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides), Oxford, 2001.
• J. M. Edmonds, Lyra Graeca II pp.23 (Loeb Classical Library) Harvard University Press, 1958