Customer Reviews

Callimachus: Hymns, Epigrams, Select Fragments

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This set of translations opens with a great introduction to the life of Callimachus, as limited as it must be, given existing evidence. Lombardo is a great poet, and in this sense a great translator. His work is a pleasure to read, even aloud. Occasionally, there are some odd, out-of-context words (shah, for example). Also, this book uses endnotes instead of footnotes.

This review relates to the volume, -Callimachus: Hymns,
Epigrams, Select Fragments-, Translated with an Introduction
and Notes by Stanley Lombardo and Diane Rayor. The Johns
Hopkins Univ. Press. 1988. 126 pp.
This volume contains a very good Introduction, 6 Hymns (to
Zeus; Apollo; Artemis, Delos; the Bath of Pallas; Demeter);
64 epigrams (short, succinct poetry bites!); and the
Select Fragments (parts of Callimachus's poetry that are
found in bits and pieces in various places, but which have,
unfortunately, not come down to us complete): there is the
more complete, Prologue to "Aetia"; a short fragment from
"Aetia"- itself; 10 fragments from "Victory of Berenike";
fragments 67 through 75 from "Akontios and Kydippe"; a
longer, more complete piece "The Lock of Berenike",
fragment "Iambics"; fragment 260 from "Hekale"; Lyric
Fragments from "Brankhos"; "The Deification of Arsinoe";
and "The All-Night Festival." There are Notes for the
various poems from p. 93 - 123.
The translators tell us who Callimachus was by quoting
from the -Suda-, a Byzantine encylopedia: "Callimachus,
son of Battos and Mesatma, of Kyrene, a man of letters...
assiduous enough to have written poems in every meter and
a great number of prose works beside, 800 volumes in all [!].
He lived during the reign of [the Greek imposed line of
rulers of Egypt] Ptolemy Philadelphos [285-247 B.C.E.]
Before his introduction to that king he taught grammar in
Eleusis, a suburb of Alexandria [Egypt]. He survived to
the time of Ptolemy Euergetes [Philadelphos's successor]."
The translators further supply, "We learn from another source
(a scholium in a manuscript of Plautus) that Callimachus
held a royal appointment in the great Library of Alexandria.
Whether he was ever head librarian is a disputed point- he
probably never was- but we do know that he produced a
catalogue, the -Pinakes-, of the Library's holdings. His

celebrated maxim...("Big Book, big brother") is probably
to be understood in the context of his work as librarian,
but is in accord with his aesthetic canons as well."
The importance of Callimachus comes not just from what
he himself wrote, and sadly we now have such a small
portion of, but of his important influence on those poets
who came after him, especially among the Romans. In his
own time, Callimachus might be viewed by us as a transitional
figure between the modes and forms of ancient Greek poetry
as they are transformed by a new perspective of the
Hellenistic era (after the death of Alexander the Great,
10 June 323 B.C.) The city of Alexandria, Egypt, founded
by Alexander, became a great center of learning, culture,
literary creativity, trade, and cosmopolitan spirit.
Callimachus is a part of that wondrous mixture. The
poetry of Callimachus presents a delicious mixture of
flavors and tones, from the slightly distant Hymns, to
the more immediate epigram complaints over youthful males he
is attracted to (with his sharp complaints over their ways
and wiles), to the tart comments he places in some of
the poems about his critics and the heavy influence upon
him of his researches and learning retentions.
Callimachus, in the hands of the right translators (and
these two are excellent) "comes alive" for us with
immediacy, wit, tartness, clever irony, and very real
moments of revelation.
Here is their haunting translation of the emanation of
the god Apollo: "Don't you see, the Delian/ palm tree
nodded,/ a sudden sweetness, the swan sings in air,/ bolts
slide from the door, the hinges swing/ The god is no longer
far."
-- Robert Kilgore.