#kallimachos

[deathlessathanasia]

„Commentators have long suspected that the competition of the two „wives” [Hera and Leto in Kallimachos' Hymn to Delos] and their sons reflected contemporary politics, since the sons of Ptolemy I by his earlier wife, Eurydice, were passed over in favor of his son (Ptolemy II) by Berenice I.” - Callimachus: The Hymns by Susan A. Stephens

[aimee-maroux]

Hymn to Artemis by Kallimachos

There in the entrance you meet Hermes and Apollon: Hermes, the Lord of Blessing, takes your weapons, Apollon takes whatever wild beast you bring. Yeah, so Apollon did before strong Alkides [Herakles] came, but now Phoibus has this task no longer. In such wise the Anvil of Tiryns [Herakles] stands ever before the gates, waiting to see if you will come home with some fat morsel. And all the gods laugh at him with laughter unceasingly and most of all his own wife’s mother [Hera] when he brings from the car a great bull or a wild boar, carrying it by the hind foot struggling. With this sunning speech, goddess, does he admonish you: “Shoot at the evil wild beasts that mortals may call you their helper even as they call me. Leave deer and hares to feed upon the hills. What harm could deer and hares do? It is boars which ravage the tilth of men and boars which ravage the plants; and oxen are a great bane to men: shoot also at those.” So he spoke and swiftly busied himself about the mighty beast. For though beneath a Phrygian oak his flesh was deified, he has not yet ceased from gluttony. He still has that belly wherewith he met Theiodamas* at the plough. For you the nymphs of Amnisus rub down the hinds loosed from the yoke, and from the mead of Hera they gather and carry for them to feed on much swift-springing clover, which also the horses of Zeus eat; and golden troughs they fill with water to be for the deer a pleasant draught. And your enter your Father’s house, and all alike bid you to seat next to them but you sit beside Apollon. Kallimachos, Hymn to Artemis 3, 142-169

* Theiodamas was the owner of two prized bulls that he used to plough his land. A hungry Heracles killed one of the bulls and ate it. When an angry Theiodamas confronted Heracles, the Greek hero struck him down, killing him. He the made Theiodamas’ son Hylas his lover and arm bearer.

[antiquitystuff]

[spiderlilyart]

I realized that even though I’ve drawn Bernie I’ve never drawn Kallimachos. I have a big crush on him (who wouldn’t though tbh)  I kind of sort of stole him for practice! I’m definitely pixelling faster! 

Kallimachos belongs to @wanderingkotka 

[deathlessathanasia]

„Already in antiquity, her [Artemis'] simultaneous association with both virginity and childbirth was regarded as striking and in need of an explanation. Callimachus devoted an aition to this very issue in the Aetia, although this section of the poem is unfortunately known to us only in the fragmentary and summarized form of the Diegesis: (Diegesis I 27-36 = FF 79-79a Pfeiffer / Harder = 182 Massimilla). Why do they call…Next he says that women who are having difficulty in giving birth invoke Artemis, although she is a virgin, because she was born …,13 or because Eileithyia allowed her to have this privilege because of an order from Zeus, or because she relieved her own mother from pain when she bore Apollo. 14 This is a case where Callimachus gives competing aetiologies. As Fantuzzi-Hunter remarked: The wording of the summary suggests that the poet himself did not choose between these explanations, each of which is of itself perfectly sensible. This passage has been interpreted as offering a complex ‘three-part’ aetiology covering Artemis’ own birth, prerogatives, and paradigmatic intervention, but it would at least be surprising to find Callimachus concerned to provide a complete and internally consistent account.(Fantuzzi-Hunter 2004: 57) That Callimachus did not commit to a specific explanation might be further evidenced by the fact that all three reasons given in the aition find a parallel in other Callimachean texts: 15 for the idea that Artemis does not cause pain to the mother during childbirth (if the hypothesis on the lacuna is correct), cf. Hymn 3.22-25; 16 the link between Eileithyia and Artemis seems to be suggested by Callim. Ia. F 202.1 Pfeiffer; 17 and the suggestion that Artemis relieved the pain of Leto during Apollo’s birth is compatible with the version of this episode narrated in Callimachus’Hymn 4, where Artemis is born before her brother.”

- Davide Massimo, „Huntress and Midwife: Two Aspects of Artemis in Hellenistic Poetry”. In Klooster, Regtuit, Wakker and Harder (Eds.) Women and Power in Hellenistic Poetry

[deathlessathanasia]

I know we laugh about the mention in Kallimachos' Hymn to Delos of Iris sleeping beside Hera's throne and never loosening her boots or girdle in case Hera has need to send her somewhere, but honestly it's pretty disturbing (she is literally compared to one of Artemis' dogs!) and it's definitely meant to be a detail that reflects badly on Hera's character in this poem.

„While Kallimachos’ Hymn to Delos is in one sense a hymn for Apollo, within the poetry book it also appears to be an anti-hymn for Hera. Instead of praising her in the mode of the good queens, Kallimachos sets her as the negative paradeigma who exaggerates the stereotype of the bad queen. Instead of fretting that Apollo will be an imperious brute who overthrows his father, as in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, everyone in Kallimachos’ hymn fears Hera’s jealous wrath as she exacts vengeance on Leto for sleeping with Zeus and bearing his children. Beyond her obsession with the sexual politics of the oikos, Hera is shown to punish unjustly, feel no pity, and lack the capacity to forgive until Zeus ultimately puts an end to her abuses of power. 160 Moreover, Kallimachos demonstrates that in place of the philia and charis that operate within good regimes, qualities endemic to tyranny, such as threats and flattery, guide Hera’s relationship with her subordinates. … Kallimachos’ portrayal of Hera is unsympathetic and harsh, ... When Iris speaks to Hera, however, she praises the goddess, stroking her ego and telling her just what she wants to hear. Iris reassures Hera that she is “the legitimate ruler of Olympos” (κρείουσα γνησίη Οὐλύμποιο, 4.219–20). Playing the role of the sycophant, 164 Iris flatters Hera with honorifics such as κρείουσα (4.219), ἄνασσα (4.221), πότνια (4.226)—the titles Kallimachos bestows upon the goddesses he praises as queens. 165 The title Kallimachos gives Hera, on the other hand, is δεσπότις (4.239), a term cognate with πότνια. While this term is often used as a neutral expression of power, it is also open to a slightly pejorative connotation. Kallimachos uses it to describe Hera in the context of Iris’ slavish devotion to her, highlighting both Hera’s despotism 166 and Iris’ role as a servile flatterer.” - The New Politics of Olympos: Kingship in Kallimachos' Hymns by Michael Brumbaugh

[deathlessathanasia]

"“Thessalian nymphs, race of the river, tell your father (110) to calm his great flood. Entwine yourselves in his beard, praying that the children of Zeus be born in his waters. Phthiotian Peneius, why do you now contend with the winds? O father, you are not mounted on a racehorse. Indeed are your feet always this swift, or (115) are they only nimble in my case and suddenly today you made them fly? But he does not hear. O my burden, where shall I carry you? My unhappy ankles refuse. Pelion, O bridal chamber of Philyra, but you, stay, stay, since in your mountains even wild beasts, lionesses, in labor often (120) drop the raw fruits of their labor.” Then Peneius answered her pouring forth his tears: “Leto, Necessity is a mighty goddess. For it is not I, mistress, who refuse your birth pangs. (I know that others, too, have washed the afterbirth in my waters.) But Hera has (125) threatened me abundantly. Look who keeps watch, seated on the mountaintop, who would easily drag me down from the depths. What shall I do? Or is Peneius being destroyed a pleasant thing for you? Let my day of destiny come; I shall risk it for your sake, even if I shouldwander for eternity, (130) ebbing and thirsty, and alone among the rivers should be called the least honorable. Here I am. What more can I say? Only call upon Eileithyia.” He spoke and halted his great flood. But Ares, having lifted the peaks of Pangaeum from their base, was going (135) to hurl them into his eddies and cover up his streams. On high he crashed and struck his shield with the point of his spear, and made it quiver with a warlike beat. The mountains of Ossa trembled and the plain of Crannon and the windswept heights of the Pindus, and all of Thessaly danced in fear. (140) Such a noise rang from his shield. Just as, when the whole interior of Mt. Etna, smoldering with fire, is shaken because the Giant Briareos under the earth moves onto his other shoulder, the furnaces roar under Hephaestus’ tongs (145) and likewise his implements; the fire-wrought basins and tripods ring out as they fall upon each other. Just as loud as this then was the clash of his well-rounded shield. Peneius did not draw back, but remained steadfast as before, and stopped his rapid eddies, (150) until the daughter of Coeus called to him: “Farewell, save yourself, save yourself. Do not suffer evil for my sake as a recompense for your pity. Your favor will be rewarded.” She spoke and after much effort came to the islands of the sea."

- Kallimachos, Hymn 4. To Delos

[deathlessathanasia]

„Twenty five years ago all that was known of Sotades’ notorious poem was a single line. This is a very infamous and highly offensive comment on Ptolemy’s marriage with his sister (fr. 1 Powell = Athen. 14.621a, [Plut.] De lib. ed. 11a; the translation of the following three fragments of Sotades and Callimachus is by Alan Cameron): εἰς οὐχ ὁσίην τρυµαλιὴν τὸ κέντρον ὤθει. partim ὤθει partim ὠθεῖ codd. Athen. ὠθεῖς De lib. ed. It’s an unholy hole he’s shoving his prick in. However, in 1984 Roberto Pretagostini came out with a proposal to see in this line a surprising ending of the poem which would begin with the verse in Sotadean metre that he found anonymously preserved in Hephaestion (fr. 16 Powell = Hephaest., p. 36.12 Consbruch): Ἥρην ποτέ φασιν ∆ία τὸν τερπικέραυνον… They say that once upon a time Zeus who delights in thunder and Hera… This line sounds like extracted from a fine encomium of the Ptolemies. One finds the same comparison of their marriage to the ἱερὸς γάµος of Zeus and Hera in Theocritus’ Encomium of Philadelphus (Id. 17.131–4), and we are told by Plutarch (Quaest. conv. 736f) that such was the beginning of an epithalamium sung by a certain rhapsode at the Ptolemies’ wedding. So, too, Sotades’ poem surely proceeded safely and predictably as a conventional wedding poem, until at the end the reader was unexpectedly attacked with the insult clearly addressed to the king.

Pretagostini’s ingenious reconstruction of the invective is widely (and rightly) accepted, and so is his suggestion that a certain passage in Callimachus’ Aetia should be viewed as an allusion to the poem of Sotades. The suspected passage of Callimachus is from the elegy Acontius and Cydippe. The context (lines 1–3 of the fragment) suggests that the narrator is about to tell the story of the ἱερὸς γάµος, but he suddenly cuts it short (Call., fr. 75.4–5 Pfeiffer = P. Oxy. 1011): Ἥρην γάρ κοτέ φασι – κύον, κύον, ἴσχεο, λαιδρὲ θυµέ, σύ γ' ἀείσῃ καὶ τά περ οὐχ ὁσίη. They say that once upon a time Hera– dog, dog, hold back, impudent soul! You would sing even what is not lawful. One clearly sees that the beginning of the story is an almost exact quotation of what we have just recognized as the first line of Sotades’ invective. In this light it can be plausibly argued that the expression οὐχ ὁσίη alludes to the analogous epithet in the abusive ending of Sotades’ poem.”

- Jan Kwapisz, A Lesson for the King: Sotades’ Invective against Ptolemy (fr. 1 and 16 Powell) and Callimachus’ “Epigram” 1 Pfeiffer.