Three by 'Anacreon'

These poems are part of a substantial sequence in the dedicatory Book 6 of the Anthology (AP 6.134-45) credited to Anacreon, one of the nine poets of the Greek lyric canon. Anacreon was active in the late 6th and early 5th century BC, long before epigram became a literary genre; but since epigram began as inscriptions and these poems are at least notionally inscriptional, who knows. Romantically I would like to entertain the possibility that they are his.

Anacreon's legendarily exuberant persona inspires numerous poems in the Anthology; you can read a draft article by Katherine Gutzwiller about Anacreontic echoes and impersonations in its other books.

My version of 6.135 is quite loose; the rhyming last two lines unpack just three words in the Greek, μνᾶμα ποδῶν ἀρετᾶς. I wanted to capture something of the epic flavour of Anacreon's phrasing here. What might have been more baldly rendered as 'excellence of feet' (ποδῶν ἀρετᾶς) recalls Homer's Iliad (20.411), ποδῶν ἀρετὴν ἀναφαίνων, of a young son of Priam who glories in his fleetness of foot but finds it cannot save him from Achilles' spear. Liddell and Scott explain pous as meaning 'foot' particularly in its aspect as that with which one runs, which I took as an excuse for 'drumming feet'.

6.134

‘ANACREON’

Our Heliconias, she who holds the wand,

Xanthippe with her, Glauce too, come down

From mountain pasture for the choral dance,

Bring Dionysus ivy for his crown,

A bunch of grapes, a tubby billy-goat.

6.135

THE SAME

Phidolas’ horse from Corinth’s open plain

Stands here as offering to Kronos’ son,

A lasting witness to the mighty pace

Of drumming feet with which he won the race.

6.136

THE SAME

This dress was fashioned by Prēxidice,

Designed by Dyseris: two of a kind

Who share a genius for industry.