Jump to content

Contest of Cithaeron and Helicon

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Caeciliusinhorto (talk | contribs) at 21:52, 15 February 2022 (→Poem). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Corinna, by Frederick Leighton

The "Contest of Cithaeron and Helicon" (PMG 654) is a fragment of a poem by Corinna. It tells the story of a singing competition between two mountains, Cithaeron and Helicon, which was apparently won by Mount Cithaeron.

Preservation

The poem is preserved on a second-century AD piece of papyrus, P.Berol. 13284.[1] The papyrus was discovered by Otto Rubensohn at Hermopolis in 1906. The papyrus also preserves part of Corinna's poem on the daughters of Asopus.[2]

Poem

Mounts Cithaeron (left) and Helicon (right) by Hugh William Williams

The contest poem is about a singing contest between Cithaeron and Helicon; conflict between these two mountains is known from other sources, but Corinna's poem is the only known mention of a singing contest between the two.[3] In Corinna's poem, Cithaeron apparently wins the contest; in other versions of the story, Helicon is the victor.[4]

The surviving part of the poem begins with one of the singers – generally thought to be Cithaeron[5] – concluding his song, which tells the myth of how the titan Rhea hid her youngest child, Zeus, from Cronus.[6] The poem continues with the gods voting on the winner of the contest, and awarding the victory to Cithaeron.[7] Next, Helicon throws a down boulder in his anger, which breaks into ten thousand pieces.[6] John Heath reads this episode as an example of a characteristic sense of humour in Corinna's poetry.[8]

Corinna's use of the story of Rhea and the birth of Zeus in the poem is apparently influenced by Hesiod's account of the same myth in Theogony.[9] There are several verbal echoes of Hesiod in Corinna's version of the story, though she also adds her own innovations – such as the inclusion of the Curetes, which are not mentioned in the Theogony.[10] Corinna's version of the poem emphasises the role of Rhea, and Diane Rayor argues that this is an example of Corinna writing for a specifically female audience.[11]

Performance

Corinna's poems were probably mostly written for choral performance in connection with local festivals.[12] The contest poem may have been written for performance at the Daedala, a festival in honour of Hera at Plataea, which was held in part at the summit of Mount Cithaeron.[13]

References

  1. ^ Page 1962, pp. 326–327.
  2. ^ Berliner Papyrusdatenbank.
  3. ^ Campbell 1967, p. 411.
  4. ^ Henderson 1995, p. 35.
  5. ^ Heath 2017, p. 99, n. 44.
  6. ^ a b Henderson 1995, p. 33.
  7. ^ Corinna, 654 PMG ll.18–27
  8. ^ Heath 2017, pp. 98–99.
  9. ^ Collins 2006, pp. 26–28.
  10. ^ Vergados 2012, p. 102.
  11. ^ Rayor 1993, p. 226.
  12. ^ Larmour 2005, p. 41.
  13. ^ Larmour 2005, p. 37.

Works cited

  • "P. Berol 13284".
  • Campbell, David A. (1967). Greek Lyric Poetry: A Selection of Early Greek Lyric, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry. Macmillan.
  • Collins, Derek (2006). "Corinna and Mythological Innovation". The Classical Quarterly. 56 (1): 19–32. doi:10.1017/S0009838806000036. S2CID 171018980.
  • Heath, John (2017). "Corinna's 'Old Wives' Tales'". Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. 109.
  • Henderson, W. J. (1995). "Corinna of Tanagra on Poetry". Acta Classica. 38.
  • Larmour, David H. J. (2005). "Corinna's Metis and the Epinikian Tradition". In Greene, Ellen (ed.). Women Poets in Ancient Greece and Rome. University of Oklahoma Press.
  • Page, Denys (1962). Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford University Press.
  • Vergados, Athanassios (2012). "Corinna's Poetic Mountains: PMG 654 col. i 1–34 and Hesiodic Reception". Classical Philology. 107 (2): 101–118. doi:10.1086/664026. S2CID 162346852.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Contest_of_Cithaeron_and_Helicon&oldid=1072082693"