Ibycus

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Who is Ibycus?

Ibycus was an Ancient Greek lyric poet, a citizen of Rhegium in Magna Graecia, probably active at Samos during the reign of the tyrant Polycrates and numbered by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. He was mainly remembered in antiquity for pederastic verses but he also composed lyrical narratives on mythological themes in the manner of Stesichorus. His work survives today only as quotations by ancient scholars or recorded on fragments of papyrus recovered from archaeological sites in Egypt, yet his extant verses include some of the finest examples of Greek poetry. The following lines, dedicated to a lover, Euryalus, were recorded by Athenaeus as a famous example of amorous praise:

The rich language of these lines, in particular the accumulation of epithets, typical of Ibycus, is shown in the following translation:

This mythological account of his lover recalls Hesiod's account of Pandora who was decked out by the same goddesses so as to be a bane to mankind—an allusion consistent with Ibycus's view of love as unavoidable turmoil.

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on July 23, 2013

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