Stesichorus

Stesichorus (Ancient Greek: Polytonic|Στησίχορος, English translation: "he who sets up the chorus") was a Greek lyric poet from Himera in Sicily, who lived from 640 BC to 555 BC. According to the Suidas he lived from the 37th Olympiad to the 56th and had two brothers: Mamertinus and Helianax. [J.M. Edmonds, "Lyra Graeca II" pp.23 (Loeb Classical Library) Harvard University Press, 1958] He was included in a list of nine respected lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic 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 1960's, 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. [Plato, "Phaedrus" [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=plat.%20phaedrus%20243a 243b] .]

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

References

*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.
*Anne Carson, "Autobiography of Red".
*J. M. Edmonds, "Lyra Graeca II" pp.23 (Loeb Classical Library) Harvard University Press, 1958

Further reading

*Barrett, W. S., "Greek Lyric, Tragedy, and Textual Criticism: Collected Papers", edited for publication by M. L. West (Oxford & New York, 2007)