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Greek Anthology

The Greek Anthology (Latin: Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the Greek Anthology comes from two manuscripts, the Palatine Anthology of the 10th century and the Anthology of Planudes (or Planudean Anthology) of the 14th century.[1][2]

Beginning of the Anthologia Palatina, main part of The Greek Anthology. Scan by the Gesellschaft der Freunde Universität Heidelberg e. V.

The earliest known anthology in Greek was compiled by Meleager of Gadara in the first century BC, under the title Anthologia, or "Flower-gathering." It contained poems by the compiler himself and forty-six other poets, including Archilochus, Alcaeus, Anacreon, and Simonides. In his preface to his collection, Meleager describes his arrangement of poems as if it were a head-band or garland of flowers woven together in a tour de force that made the word "Anthology" a synonym for a collection of literary works for future generations.

Meleager's Anthology was popular enough that it attracted later additions. Prefaces to the editions of Philippus of Thessalonica and Agathias were preserved in the Greek Anthology to attest to their additions of later poems. The definitive edition was made by Constantine Cephalas in the 10th century, who added a number of other collections: homoerotic verse collected by Straton of Sardis in the 2nd century AD; a collection of Christian epigrams found in churches; a collection of satirical and convivial epigrams collected by Diogenianus; Christodorus' description of statues in the Byzantine gymnasium of Zeuxippos; and a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus.

The scholar Maximus Planudes also made an edition of the Greek Anthology, which while adding some poems, primarily deleted or bowdlerized many of the poems he felt were too explicit. His anthology was the only one known to Western Europe (his autograph copy, dated 1301 survives; the first edition based on his collection was printed in 1494) until 1606 when Claudius Salmasius found in the library at Heidelberg a fuller collection based on Cephalas. The copy made by Salmasius was not, however, published until 1776, when Richard François Philippe Brunck included it in his Analecta. The first critical edition was that of F. Jacobs (13 vols. 1794–1803; revised 1813–17).

Since its transmission to the rest of Europe, the Greek Anthology has left a deep impression on its readers. In a 1971 article on Robin Skelton's translation of a selection of poems from the Anthology, a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement wrote, "The time of life does not exist when it is impossible to discover in it a masterly poem one had never seen before." Its influence can be seen on writers as diverse as Propertius, Ezra Pound and Edgar Lee Masters. Since full and uncensored English translations became available at the end of the 20th century, its influence has widened still further.

Literary history

The art of occasional poetry had been cultivated in Greece from an early period, being used to commemorate remarkable individuals or events, on funerary monuments and votive offerings. These compositions were termed epigrams, i.e. inscribed poems. Such a composition must necessarily be brief, and as a result, conciseness of expression, pregnancy of meaning, purity of diction and singleness of thought are the indispensable conditions of excellence in the epigrammatic style. The term was soon extended to any piece by which these conditions were fulfilled.[3]

About 60 BC, the sophist and poet Meleager of Gadara undertook to combine the choicest effusions of his predecessors into a single body of fugitive poetry. Collections of monumental inscriptions, or of poems on particular subjects, had previously been formed by Polemon Periegetes and others; but Meleager first gave the principle a comprehensive application. His selection, compiled from forty-six of his predecessors, and including numerous contributions of his own, was entitled The Garland (Στέφανος); in an introductory poem each poet is compared to some flower, fancifully deemed appropriate to his genius. The arrangement of his collection was alphabetical, according to the initial letter of each epigram.[3]

In the age of the emperor Tiberius (or Trajan, according to others) the work of Meleager was continued by another epigrammatist, Philippus of Thessalonica, who first employed the term "anthology". His collection, which included the compositions of thirteen writers subsequent to Meleager, was also arranged alphabetically, and contained an introductory poem. It was of inferior quality to Meleager's. Somewhat later, under Hadrian, another supplement was formed by the sophist Diogenianus of Heracleia (2nd century AD), and Straton of Sardis compiled his elegant Μοῦσα παιδική (Musa Puerilis) from his productions and those of earlier writers. No further collection from various sources is recorded until the time of Justinian, when epigrammatic writing, especially of an amatory character, experienced a great revival at the hands of Agathias of Myrina, the historian, Paulus Silentiarius, and their circle. Their ingenious but mannered productions were collected by Agathias into a new anthology, entitled The Circle (Κύκλος); it was the first to be divided into books, and arranged with reference to the subjects of the pieces.[3]

These and other collections made during the Middle Ages are now lost. The partial incorporation of them into a single body, classified according to the contents in 15 books, was the work of a certain Constantinus Cephalas, whose name alone is preserved in the single MS. of his compilation extant, but who probably lived during the literary revival under Constantine Porphyrogenitus, at the beginning of the 10th century. He appears to have merely made excerpts from the existing anthologies, with the addition of selections from Lucillius, Palladas, and other epigrammatists, whose compositions had been published separately. His arrangement is founded on a principle of classification, and nearly corresponds to that adopted by Agathias. His principle of selection is unknown. The next editor was the monk Maximus Planudes (AD 1320), who removed some epigrams from Cephalas' anthology, added some verses of his own, and preserved epigrams on works of art, which are not included in the only surviving transcript of Cephalas.[3]

 
The van Bosch and van Lennep version of The Greek Anthology (in five vols., begun by Bosch in 1795, finished and published by Lennep in 1822). Photographed at The British Museum, London. Contains the metrical Latin version of Grotius's Planudean version of the Anthology. Heavily illustrated. It also reprints the very error-prone Greek text of the Wechelian edition (1600) of the Anthology, which is itself a reprint of the 1566 Planudean edition by Henricus Stephanus.

The Planudean Anthology (in seven books) was the only recension of the anthology known at the revival of classical literature, and was first published at Florence, by Janus Lascaris, in 1494. It long continued to be the only accessible collection, for although the Palatine manuscript known as the Palatine Anthology, the sole extant copy of the anthology of Cephalas, was discovered in the Palatine library at Heidelberg, and copied by Saumaise (Salmasius) in 1606, it was not published until 1776, when it was included in Brunck's Analecta Veterum Poetarum Graecorum (Crumbs of the Ancient Greek Poets). The manuscript itself had frequently changed its quarters. In 1623, having been taken in the sack of Heidelberg in the Thirty Years' War, it was sent with the rest of the Palatine Library to Rome as a present from Maximilian I of Bavaria to Pope Gregory XV, who had it divided into two parts, the first of which was by far the larger; thence it was taken to Paris in 1797. In 1816 it went back to Heidelberg, but in an incomplete state, the second part remaining at Paris. It is now represented at Heidelberg by a photographic facsimile.[4]

Brunck's edition was superseded by the standard one of Friedrich Jacobs (1794–1814, 13 vols.), the text of which was reprinted in a more convenient form in 1813–1817, and occupies three pocket volumes in the Tauchnitz series of the classics. The best edition for general purposes is perhaps that of Dubner in Didot's Bibliotheca (1864–1872), which contains the Palatine Anthology, the epigrams of the Planudean Anthology not collected in the former, an appendix of pieces derived from other sources, copious notes, a literal Latin prose translation by Jean François Boissonade, Bothe, and Lapaume and the metrical Latin versions of Hugo Grotius. A third volume, edited by E. Cougny, was published in 1890. The best edition of the Planudean Anthology is the splendid one by van Bosch and van Lennep (1795–1822). There is also an incomplete edition of the text by Hugo Stadtmüller in the Teubner series, 3 vols.,[5] which stops at IX 563 due to Stadtmüller's death. More recent editions are one in the Collection des Universités de France series, 13 vols., started by Pierre Waltz and continued by other scholars, and one edited by Hermann Beckby, 4 vols., in the Tusculum series. The most recent edition is by Fabrizio Conca, Mario Marzi and Giuseppe Zanetto, 3 vols., published by UTET.

Arrangement

The Palatine MS., the archetype of the present text, was transcribed by different persons at different times, and the actual arrangement of the collection does not correspond with that signalized in the index. It is arranged into the following books:[5]

  1. Christian epigrams;
  2. Christodorus's description of certain statues;
  3. Inscriptions in the temple at Cyzicus;
  4. The prefaces of Meleager, Philippus, and Agathias to their respective collections;
  5. Amatory epigrams;
  6. Votive inscriptions;
  7. Epitaphs;
  8. The epigrams of Gregory of Nazianzus;
  9. Rhetorical and illustrative epigrams;
  10. Ethical pieces;
  11. Humorous and convivial;
  12. Strato's Musa Puerilis;
  13. Metrical curiosities;
  14. Puzzles, enigmas, oracles;
  15. Miscellanies.

The epigrams on works of art, as already stated, are missing from the Codex Palatinus, and must be sought in an appendix of epigrams only occurring in the Planudean Anthology. The epigrams hitherto recovered from ancient monuments and similar sources form appendices in the second and third volumes of Dübner's edition. The Liddell Scott Greek Lexicon divides the Anthologia Graeca sources into Anthologia Palatina, Planudea (1864-1968), then Appendix nova epigrammatum (1890 onward).[6]

Style

The poems in the anthology represent different periods. Four stages may be indicated:

  1. The Hellenic proper, of which Simonides of Ceos (c. 556 – 469 BC), the author of most of the sepulchral inscriptions on those who fell in the Persian wars, is representative. Nearly all the pieces of this era are actual inscriptions or addresses to real personages, whether living or deceased.
  2. The epigram received a great development in its second or Alexandrian era, when its range was extended to include anecdote, satire, and amorous longing; when epitaphs and votive inscriptions were composed on imaginary persons and things. The modification has a representative in Leonidas of Tarentum, a contemporary of Pyrrhus of Epirus, and closes with Antipater of Sidon, about 140 BC (or later). Callimachus, one of the Alexandrian poets, affects stern simplicity in his epigrams.
  3. Meleager of Gadara was a Syrian; his pieces are usually erotic, with far-fetched conceits. His gaiety and licentiousness are imitated and exaggerated by his somewhat later contemporary, the Epicurean Philodemus, and his fancy reappears in Philodemus's contemporary, Zonas, in Crinagoras of Mytilene, who wrote under Augustus, and in Marcus Argentarius, of uncertain date. At a later period of the empire another genre, was developed, the satirical. Lucillus of Tarrha, who flourished under Nero, and Lucian, display a talent for shrewd, caustic epigram. The same style obtains with Palladas, an Alexandrian grammarian of the 4th century, the last of the strictly classical epigrammatists. His literary position is that of an indignant but despairing opponent of Christianity.
  4. The fourth or Byzantine style of epigrammatic composition was cultivated at the court of Justinian. The diction of Agathias and his compeers is ornate.[5]

Translations and imitations

Latin renderings of select epigrams by Hugo Grotius were published in Bosch and Lennep's edition of the Planudean Anthology, in the Didot edition, and in Henry Wellesley's Anthologia Polyglotta. Imitations in modern languages have been copious, actual translations less common. F. D. Dehèque's 1863 translation was in French prose. The German language admits of the preservation of the original metre, a circumstance exploited by Johann Gottfried Herder and Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs.[7]

Robert Bland, John Herman Merivale, and their associates (1806–1813), produced efforts that are often diffuse. Francis Wrangham's (1769–1842) versions, Poems (London, 1795), are more spirited; and John Sterling translated the inscriptions of Simonides. John Wilson in Blackwood's Magazine 1833–1835, collected and commented on the labours of these and other translators, including indifferent attempts of William Hay.[7]

In 1849 Henry Wellesley, principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford, published his Anthologia Polyglotta, a collection of the translations and imitations in all languages, with the original text. In this appeared versions by Goldwin Smith and Merivale, which, with the other English renderings extant at the time, accompany the literal prose translation of the Public School Selections, executed by the Rev. George Burges for Bohn's Classical Library (1854).[7]

In 1864 Major R. G. Macgregor published Greek Anthology, with notes critical and explanatory, an almost complete but mediocre translation of the Anthology. Idylls and Epigrams, by Richard Garnett (1869, reprinted 1892 in the Cameo series), includes about 140 translations or imitations, with some original compositions in the same style.[7]

Further translations and selections include:

  • Robert Bland, John Herman Merivale, Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology (London, 1806)
  • ——— Collections from the Greek Anthology, &c. (London; John Murray, 1813)
  • George Burges, The Greek Anthology, as selected for the use of Westminster, Eton, &c. (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855)
  • Richard Garnett, Idylls and Epigrams chiefly from the Greek Anthology (London: Macmillan, 1869)
  • ——— A Chaplet from the Greek Anthology (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1892)
  • Fydell Edmund Garrett, Rhymes and Renderings (Cambridge; Bowes & Bowes, 1887)
  • Andrew Lang, Grass of Parnassus: Rhymes Old and New (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1888)
  • ——— Grass of Parnassus: First and Last Rhymes (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1892)
  • Graham R. Tomson, ed., Selections from the Greek Anthology (London: Walter Scott, 1889)
  • H. C. Beeching, Love in Idleness: A Volume of Poems (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1883)
  • ——— In a Garden, and Other Poems (London: John Lane; New York: Macmillan, 1895)
  • Walter Headlam, Fifty Poems of Meleager (London: Macmillan, 1890)
  • ——— A Book of Greek Verse (Cambridge UP, 1907)
  • J. W. Mackail, Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology (with text, introduction, notes, and prose translation; London, 1890, revised 1906)
  • L. C. Perry, From the Garden of Hellas (New York: John W. Lovell, 1891)
  • W. R. Paton, Anthologiae Graecae Erotica: The Love Epigrams or Book V of the Palatine Anthology (edited, and partly rendered into English verse, London, 1898)
  • Jane Minot Sidgwick, Sicilian Idylls and Other Verses Translated from the Greek (Boston: Copeland & Day, 1898)
  • W. H. D. Rouse, An Echo of Greek Song (London, 1899)
  • Evelyn Baring, Translations and Paraphrases from the Greek Anthology (London: Macmillan, 1903)
  • J. A. Pott, Greek Love Songs and Epigrams from the Anthology (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1911)
  • Herbert Kynaston; Edward Daniel Stone, ed., Herbert Kynaston: a short memoir with selections from his occasional writings (London: Macmillan, 1912)
  • G. B. Grundy, ed., Ancient Gems in Modern Settings; being Versions of the Greek Anthology in English Rhyme by Various Writers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1913)
  • James G. Legge, Echoes from the Greek Anthology (London: Constable & Co., 1919)
  • Alfred J. Butler, Amaranth and Asphodel: Songs from the Greek Anthology (London: Basil Blackwell & Mott, Ltd., 1922)
  • F. W. Wright, The Girdle of Aphrodite: The Complete Love Poems of the Palatine Anthology (London: G. Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1923)
  • ——— The Poets of the Greek Anthology: A Companion Volume to The Girdle of Aphrodite (London: G. Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1924)
  • Norman Douglas, Birds and Beasts of the Greek Anthology (Florence: Tipografia Giuntina, 1927)
  • Robert Allason Furness, Translations from the Greek Anthology (London: Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1931)
  • J. M. Edmonds, Some Greek Poems of Love and Beauty (Cambridge UP, 1937)
  • ——— Some Greek Poems of Love and Wine (Cambridge UP, 1939)
  • C. M. Bowra, T. F. Higham, eds., The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation (Oxford UP, 1938)
  • F. L. Lucas, A Greek Garland: A Selection from the Palatine Anthology (text of 149 poems, introduction, notes, and verse translations; Oxford, 1939)
  • ——— Greek Poetry for Everyman (New York: Macmillan, 1951)
  • Dudley Fitts, Poems from the Greek Anthology (New York: New Directions, 1956)
  • Kenneth Rexroth, Poems from the Greek Anthology (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1962)
  • Andrew Sinclair, Selections from the Greek Anthology: The Wit and Wisdom of the Sons of Hellas (selection and translation; New York: Macmillan, 1967)
  • Robin Skelton, Two Hundred Poems from The Greek Anthology (Seattle: U of Washington P, 1971)
  • Peter Jay, The Greek Anthology and Other Ancient Greek Epigrams (Allen Lane, 1973; reprinted in Penguin Classics, 1981)
  • Daryl Hine, Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of The Greek Anthology (Princeton UP, 2001)
  • Peter Constantine, Rachel Hadas, Edmund Keeley, and Karen Van Dyck, eds., The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009)
  • George Theodoridis, 2010, [1]

A small volume on the Anthology, edited and with some original translations by Lord Neaves, is one of W. Lucas Collins's series Ancient Classics for Modern Readers, The Greek Anthology (Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1874)

Two critical contributions to the subject are the Rev. James Davies's essay on Epigrams in the Quarterly Review (vol. cxvii.), illustrating the distinction between Greek and Latin epigram; and the disquisition in J. A. Symonds's Studies of the Greek Poets (1873; 3rd ed., 1893).

List of poets to whom epigrams are attributed in the Greek Anthology

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Anthony Grafton; Glenn W. Most; Salvatore Settis (2010). The Classical Tradition. Harvard University Press. p. 410. ISBN 9780674035720. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
  2. ^ "The Greek Anthology with an English Translation". ΕΤΑΝΑ (Electronic Tools and Ancient Near East Archives. Retrieved September 2, 2011.: Explanatory text for the book of W. R. Paton entitled "The Greek Anthology with an English Translation" (1916), the same text is also at the introduction in page http://www.ancientlibrary.com/greek-anthology/ before the facsimile copy of the pages of the same book
  3. ^ a b c d Garnett 1911, p. 94.
  4. ^ Garnett 1911, pp. 94–95.
  5. ^ a b c Garnett 1911, p. 95.
  6. ^ Liddell Scott Greek Lexicon "(Names of epigrammatists, where found in codd., are added in brackets.) Anthologia Palatina, Planudea, ed. F. Dübner, Paris (D.) 1864–72; ed. H. Stadtmüller, vols. i, ii (1), iii (1) (all published), Leipzig (T.) 1894–1906, H. Beckby, Munich [1965–8]2 (4 vols.; I–XV = Anthologia Palatina, XVI = Appendix Planudea) [AP, APl.]
    Appendix nova epigrammatum, ed. E. Cougny, Paris (D.) 1890. [App.Anth.]; A. S. F. Gow, D. L. Page, The Greek Anthology 1: Hellenistic Epigrams, Cambridge 1965 (2 vols.) [HE .. G.-P.]; 2: The Garland of Philip and Some Contemporary Epigrams, Cambridge 1968 [Garl. .. G.-P.]; Epigrammata Graeca, D. L. Page, OCT 1975 [EG .. P.]; Further Greek Epigrams. Epigrams before A.D. 50 from the Greek Anthology and Other Sources, D. L. Page (revised by R. D. Dawe, J. Diggle), Cambridge 1981 [FGE .. P.]; Sch.AP = Scholia ad epigrammata arithmetica in Anthologia Graeca (scholia recentiora), in Diophanti Alexandri opera omnia, P. Tannery, vol. 2 Teubner (Leipzig) 1895 [(S) 1974]."
  7. ^ a b c d Garnett 1911, p. 96.

References

External links

  •   Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article: Palatine Anthology in the original Greek
  •   Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article: Anthology of Planudes in the original Greek
  • Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology by J. W. Mackail (Project Gutenberg)
  • The Greek Anthology, W. R. Paton (ed.), 5 vol., London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's sons, 1927-28: vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3, vol. 4, vol. 5.
  • Greek Anthology English translation by W. R. Paton, arranged by poet rather than by book, at attalus.org
  • by J. W. Mackail, edited with excerpts in Greek (unicode) and a search engine
  • Plaintext of Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, and Vol. 5 on Google Books.
  • Epigrams by Women from the Greek Anthology 2011-06-06 at the Wayback Machine from Diotima
  • Maximus Planudes 2005-12-18 at the Wayback Machine from William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1867), v. 3, pp. 384–390; includes a detailed "Literary History of the Greek Anthology"
  • Read Birds and Beasts of the Greek Anthology by Norman Douglas at Project Gutenberg Australia

greek, anthology, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, april, 20. This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Greek Anthology news newspapers books scholar JSTOR April 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message The Greek Anthology Latin Anthologia Graeca is a collection of poems mostly epigrams that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature Most of the material of the Greek Anthology comes from two manuscripts the Palatine Anthology of the 10th century and the Anthology of Planudes or Planudean Anthology of the 14th century 1 2 Beginning of the Anthologia Palatina main part of The Greek Anthology Scan by the Gesellschaft der Freunde Universitat Heidelberg e V The earliest known anthology in Greek was compiled by Meleager of Gadara in the first century BC under the title Anthologia or Flower gathering It contained poems by the compiler himself and forty six other poets including Archilochus Alcaeus Anacreon and Simonides In his preface to his collection Meleager describes his arrangement of poems as if it were a head band or garland of flowers woven together in a tour de force that made the word Anthology a synonym for a collection of literary works for future generations Meleager s Anthology was popular enough that it attracted later additions Prefaces to the editions of Philippus of Thessalonica and Agathias were preserved in the Greek Anthology to attest to their additions of later poems The definitive edition was made by Constantine Cephalas in the 10th century who added a number of other collections homoerotic verse collected by Straton of Sardis in the 2nd century AD a collection of Christian epigrams found in churches a collection of satirical and convivial epigrams collected by Diogenianus Christodorus description of statues in the Byzantine gymnasium of Zeuxippos and a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus The scholar Maximus Planudes also made an edition of the Greek Anthology which while adding some poems primarily deleted or bowdlerized many of the poems he felt were too explicit His anthology was the only one known to Western Europe his autograph copy dated 1301 survives the first edition based on his collection was printed in 1494 until 1606 when Claudius Salmasius found in the library at Heidelberg a fuller collection based on Cephalas The copy made by Salmasius was not however published until 1776 when Richard Francois Philippe Brunck included it in his Analecta The first critical edition was that of F Jacobs 13 vols 1794 1803 revised 1813 17 Since its transmission to the rest of Europe the Greek Anthology has left a deep impression on its readers In a 1971 article on Robin Skelton s translation of a selection of poems from the Anthology a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement wrote The time of life does not exist when it is impossible to discover in it a masterly poem one had never seen before Its influence can be seen on writers as diverse as Propertius Ezra Pound and Edgar Lee Masters Since full and uncensored English translations became available at the end of the 20th century its influence has widened still further Contents 1 Literary history 2 Arrangement 3 Style 4 Translations and imitations 5 List of poets to whom epigrams are attributed in the Greek Anthology 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 External linksLiterary history EditThe art of occasional poetry had been cultivated in Greece from an early period being used to commemorate remarkable individuals or events on funerary monuments and votive offerings These compositions were termed epigrams i e inscribed poems Such a composition must necessarily be brief and as a result conciseness of expression pregnancy of meaning purity of diction and singleness of thought are the indispensable conditions of excellence in the epigrammatic style The term was soon extended to any piece by which these conditions were fulfilled 3 About 60 BC the sophist and poet Meleager of Gadara undertook to combine the choicest effusions of his predecessors into a single body of fugitive poetry Collections of monumental inscriptions or of poems on particular subjects had previously been formed by Polemon Periegetes and others but Meleager first gave the principle a comprehensive application His selection compiled from forty six of his predecessors and including numerous contributions of his own was entitled The Garland Stefanos in an introductory poem each poet is compared to some flower fancifully deemed appropriate to his genius The arrangement of his collection was alphabetical according to the initial letter of each epigram 3 In the age of the emperor Tiberius or Trajan according to others the work of Meleager was continued by another epigrammatist Philippus of Thessalonica who first employed the term anthology His collection which included the compositions of thirteen writers subsequent to Meleager was also arranged alphabetically and contained an introductory poem It was of inferior quality to Meleager s Somewhat later under Hadrian another supplement was formed by the sophist Diogenianus of Heracleia 2nd century AD and Straton of Sardis compiled his elegant Moῦsa paidikh Musa Puerilis from his productions and those of earlier writers No further collection from various sources is recorded until the time of Justinian when epigrammatic writing especially of an amatory character experienced a great revival at the hands of Agathias of Myrina the historian Paulus Silentiarius and their circle Their ingenious but mannered productions were collected by Agathias into a new anthology entitled The Circle Kyklos it was the first to be divided into books and arranged with reference to the subjects of the pieces 3 These and other collections made during the Middle Ages are now lost The partial incorporation of them into a single body classified according to the contents in 15 books was the work of a certain Constantinus Cephalas whose name alone is preserved in the single MS of his compilation extant but who probably lived during the literary revival under Constantine Porphyrogenitus at the beginning of the 10th century He appears to have merely made excerpts from the existing anthologies with the addition of selections from Lucillius Palladas and other epigrammatists whose compositions had been published separately His arrangement is founded on a principle of classification and nearly corresponds to that adopted by Agathias His principle of selection is unknown The next editor was the monk Maximus Planudes AD 1320 who removed some epigrams from Cephalas anthology added some verses of his own and preserved epigrams on works of art which are not included in the only surviving transcript of Cephalas 3 The van Bosch and van Lennep version of The Greek Anthology in five vols begun by Bosch in 1795 finished and published by Lennep in 1822 Photographed at The British Museum London Contains the metrical Latin version of Grotius s Planudean version of the Anthology Heavily illustrated It also reprints the very error prone Greek text of the Wechelian edition 1600 of the Anthology which is itself a reprint of the 1566 Planudean edition by Henricus Stephanus The Planudean Anthology in seven books was the only recension of the anthology known at the revival of classical literature and was first published at Florence by Janus Lascaris in 1494 It long continued to be the only accessible collection for although the Palatine manuscript known as the Palatine Anthology the sole extant copy of the anthology of Cephalas was discovered in the Palatine library at Heidelberg and copied by Saumaise Salmasius in 1606 it was not published until 1776 when it was included in Brunck s Analecta Veterum Poetarum Graecorum Crumbs of the Ancient Greek Poets The manuscript itself had frequently changed its quarters In 1623 having been taken in the sack of Heidelberg in the Thirty Years War it was sent with the rest of the Palatine Library to Rome as a present from Maximilian I of Bavaria to Pope Gregory XV who had it divided into two parts the first of which was by far the larger thence it was taken to Paris in 1797 In 1816 it went back to Heidelberg but in an incomplete state the second part remaining at Paris It is now represented at Heidelberg by a photographic facsimile 4 Brunck s edition was superseded by the standard one of Friedrich Jacobs 1794 1814 13 vols the text of which was reprinted in a more convenient form in 1813 1817 and occupies three pocket volumes in the Tauchnitz series of the classics The best edition for general purposes is perhaps that of Dubner in Didot s Bibliotheca 1864 1872 which contains the Palatine Anthology the epigrams of the Planudean Anthology not collected in the former an appendix of pieces derived from other sources copious notes a literal Latin prose translation by Jean Francois Boissonade Bothe and Lapaume and the metrical Latin versions of Hugo Grotius A third volume edited by E Cougny was published in 1890 The best edition of the Planudean Anthology is the splendid one by van Bosch and van Lennep 1795 1822 There is also an incomplete edition of the text by Hugo Stadtmuller in the Teubner series 3 vols 5 which stops at IX 563 due to Stadtmuller s death More recent editions are one in the Collection des Universites de France series 13 vols started by Pierre Waltz and continued by other scholars and one edited by Hermann Beckby 4 vols in the Tusculum series The most recent edition is by Fabrizio Conca Mario Marzi and Giuseppe Zanetto 3 vols published by UTET Arrangement EditThe Palatine MS the archetype of the present text was transcribed by different persons at different times and the actual arrangement of the collection does not correspond with that signalized in the index It is arranged into the following books 5 Christian epigrams Christodorus s description of certain statues Inscriptions in the temple at Cyzicus The prefaces of Meleager Philippus and Agathias to their respective collections Amatory epigrams Votive inscriptions Epitaphs The epigrams of Gregory of Nazianzus Rhetorical and illustrative epigrams Ethical pieces Humorous and convivial Strato s Musa Puerilis Metrical curiosities Puzzles enigmas oracles Miscellanies The epigrams on works of art as already stated are missing from the Codex Palatinus and must be sought in an appendix of epigrams only occurring in the Planudean Anthology The epigrams hitherto recovered from ancient monuments and similar sources form appendices in the second and third volumes of Dubner s edition The Liddell Scott Greek Lexicon divides the Anthologia Graeca sources into Anthologia Palatina Planudea 1864 1968 then Appendix nova epigrammatum 1890 onward 6 Style EditThe poems in the anthology represent different periods Four stages may be indicated The Hellenic proper of which Simonides of Ceos c 556 469 BC the author of most of the sepulchral inscriptions on those who fell in the Persian wars is representative Nearly all the pieces of this era are actual inscriptions or addresses to real personages whether living or deceased The epigram received a great development in its second or Alexandrian era when its range was extended to include anecdote satire and amorous longing when epitaphs and votive inscriptions were composed on imaginary persons and things The modification has a representative in Leonidas of Tarentum a contemporary of Pyrrhus of Epirus and closes with Antipater of Sidon about 140 BC or later Callimachus one of the Alexandrian poets affects stern simplicity in his epigrams Meleager of Gadara was a Syrian his pieces are usually erotic with far fetched conceits His gaiety and licentiousness are imitated and exaggerated by his somewhat later contemporary the Epicurean Philodemus and his fancy reappears in Philodemus s contemporary Zonas in Crinagoras of Mytilene who wrote under Augustus and in Marcus Argentarius of uncertain date At a later period of the empire another genre was developed the satirical Lucillus of Tarrha who flourished under Nero and Lucian display a talent for shrewd caustic epigram The same style obtains with Palladas an Alexandrian grammarian of the 4th century the last of the strictly classical epigrammatists His literary position is that of an indignant but despairing opponent of Christianity The fourth or Byzantine style of epigrammatic composition was cultivated at the court of Justinian The diction of Agathias and his compeers is ornate 5 Translations and imitations EditLatin renderings of select epigrams by Hugo Grotius were published in Bosch and Lennep s edition of the Planudean Anthology in the Didot edition and in Henry Wellesley s Anthologia Polyglotta Imitations in modern languages have been copious actual translations less common F D Deheque s 1863 translation was in French prose The German language admits of the preservation of the original metre a circumstance exploited by Johann Gottfried Herder and Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs 7 Robert Bland John Herman Merivale and their associates 1806 1813 produced efforts that are often diffuse Francis Wrangham s 1769 1842 versions Poems London 1795 are more spirited and John Sterling translated the inscriptions of Simonides John Wilson in Blackwood s Magazine 1833 1835 collected and commented on the labours of these and other translators including indifferent attempts of William Hay 7 In 1849 Henry Wellesley principal of New Inn Hall Oxford published his Anthologia Polyglotta a collection of the translations and imitations in all languages with the original text In this appeared versions by Goldwin Smith and Merivale which with the other English renderings extant at the time accompany the literal prose translation of the Public School Selections executed by the Rev George Burges for Bohn s Classical Library 1854 7 In 1864 Major R G Macgregor published Greek Anthology with notes critical and explanatory an almost complete but mediocre translation of the Anthology Idylls and Epigrams by Richard Garnett 1869 reprinted 1892 in the Cameo series includes about 140 translations or imitations with some original compositions in the same style 7 Further translations and selections include Robert Bland John Herman Merivale Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology London 1806 Collections from the Greek Anthology amp c London John Murray 1813 George Burges The Greek Anthology as selected for the use of Westminster Eton amp c London Henry G Bohn 1855 Richard Garnett Idylls and Epigrams chiefly from the Greek Anthology London Macmillan 1869 A Chaplet from the Greek Anthology London T Fisher Unwin 1892 Fydell Edmund Garrett Rhymes and Renderings Cambridge Bowes amp Bowes 1887 Andrew Lang Grass of Parnassus Rhymes Old and New London Longmans Green amp Co 1888 Grass of Parnassus First and Last Rhymes London Longmans Green amp Co 1892 Graham R Tomson ed Selections from the Greek Anthology London Walter Scott 1889 H C Beeching Love in Idleness A Volume of Poems London Kegan Paul Trench amp Co 1883 In a Garden and Other Poems London John Lane New York Macmillan 1895 Walter Headlam Fifty Poems of Meleager London Macmillan 1890 A Book of Greek Verse Cambridge UP 1907 J W Mackail Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology with text introduction notes and prose translation London 1890 revised 1906 L C Perry From the Garden of Hellas New York John W Lovell 1891 W R Paton Anthologiae Graecae Erotica The Love Epigrams or Book V of the Palatine Anthology edited and partly rendered into English verse London 1898 Jane Minot Sidgwick Sicilian Idylls and Other Verses Translated from the Greek Boston Copeland amp Day 1898 W H D Rouse An Echo of Greek Song London 1899 Evelyn Baring Translations and Paraphrases from the Greek Anthology London Macmillan 1903 J A Pott Greek Love Songs and Epigrams from the Anthology London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner amp Co 1911 Herbert Kynaston Edward Daniel Stone ed Herbert Kynaston a short memoir with selections from his occasional writings London Macmillan 1912 G B Grundy ed Ancient Gems in Modern Settings being Versions of the Greek Anthology in English Rhyme by Various Writers Oxford Blackwell 1913 James G Legge Echoes from the Greek Anthology London Constable amp Co 1919 Alfred J Butler Amaranth and Asphodel Songs from the Greek Anthology London Basil Blackwell amp Mott Ltd 1922 F W Wright The Girdle of Aphrodite The Complete Love Poems of the Palatine Anthology London G Routledge amp Sons Ltd 1923 The Poets of the Greek Anthology A Companion Volume to The Girdle of Aphrodite London G Routledge amp Sons Ltd 1924 Norman Douglas Birds and Beasts of the Greek Anthology Florence Tipografia Giuntina 1927 Robert Allason Furness Translations from the Greek Anthology London Jonathan Cape Ltd 1931 J M Edmonds Some Greek Poems of Love and Beauty Cambridge UP 1937 Some Greek Poems of Love and Wine Cambridge UP 1939 C M Bowra T F Higham eds The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation Oxford UP 1938 F L Lucas A Greek Garland A Selection from the Palatine Anthology text of 149 poems introduction notes and verse translations Oxford 1939 Greek Poetry for Everyman New York Macmillan 1951 Dudley Fitts Poems from the Greek Anthology New York New Directions 1956 Kenneth Rexroth Poems from the Greek Anthology Ann Arbor U of Michigan P 1962 Andrew Sinclair Selections from the Greek Anthology The Wit and Wisdom of the Sons of Hellas selection and translation New York Macmillan 1967 Robin Skelton Two Hundred Poems from The Greek Anthology Seattle U of Washington P 1971 Peter Jay The Greek Anthology and Other Ancient Greek Epigrams Allen Lane 1973 reprinted in Penguin Classics 1981 Daryl Hine Puerilities Erotic Epigrams of The Greek Anthology Princeton UP 2001 Peter Constantine Rachel Hadas Edmund Keeley and Karen Van Dyck eds The Greek Poets Homer to the Present New York W W Norton 2009 George Theodoridis 2010 1 A small volume on the Anthology edited and with some original translations by Lord Neaves is one of W Lucas Collins s series Ancient Classics for Modern Readers The Greek Anthology Edinburgh amp London William Blackwood amp Sons 1874 Two critical contributions to the subject are the Rev James Davies s essay on Epigrams in the Quarterly Review vol cxvii illustrating the distinction between Greek and Latin epigram and the disquisition in J A Symonds s Studies of the Greek Poets 1873 3rd ed 1893 List of poets to whom epigrams are attributed in the Greek Anthology EditAblabius Illustrius Aceratus Grammaticus Adaeus of Macedonia Aemilianus of Nicaea Aeschylus Aeschines the Orator Agathias Scholasticus Agis of Argos Alcaeus of Mytilene Alcaeus of Messene Alexander of Aetolia Alexander of Magnesia Alpheus Mytilenaeus Ammianus Ammonides Ammonius poet Anacreon Anastasius Traulus Andronicus Antagoras of Rhodes Antigonus of Carystus Antiochus Antimachus Antipater of Sidon Antipater of Thessalonica Antiphanes of Macedon Antiphilus of Byzantium Antistius Antonius of Argos Anyte of Tegea Apollinaris of Laodicea Apollonides Apollonides of Smyrna Arabius Scholasticus Aratus Archelaus Chersonestia Archias Archias of Mytilene Archias of Antioch Archias the younger Archilochus Archimedes Arethas Aristo Aristodicus Artemidorus Grammaticus Artemon Asclepiades of Samos Asclepiodotus poet Asinius Quadratus Athenaeus epigrammatist Automedon Bacchylides Besantinus Bianor Boethus Callias of Argos Callicter Callimachus Gaius Ateius Capito Carphyllides Cerealius Chaeremon Christodorus of Thebes Cillactor Claudian Claudius Ptolemaeus Cleobulus Cometas Constantine Cephalas Constantinus Rhodus Cornelius Longinus Cornelius Longus Cosmas Crates the Cynic Crates the grammarian Crinagoras of Mytilene Cyllenius Cyrillus Cyrus Damagetus Damascius Damocharis Damostratus Demetrius of Bithynia Demiurgus Demodocus of Leros Julius Diocles Diodorus Siculus Diodorus of Sardis Diodorus of Tarsus Diogenes of Amisus Bishop of Amisus Diogenes Laertius Dionysius of Andros Dionysius of Cyzicus Dionysius of Rhodes Dionysius Sophistes Dionysius Thrax Diophanes of Myrina Dioscorides Diotimus of Athens Diotimus of Miletus Diphilus Dosiadas of Rhodes Duris of Elaea Empedocles Epigonus of Thessalonica Eratosthenes Scholasticus Erinna Erycius Etruscus Evenus Evenus of Ascalon Eugenes Euphorion of Chalcis Eupithius of Athens Eutolmius Scholasticus of Alexandria Eutroclus Fronto of Emesa Gabriel the Prefect Gaetulicus Gallus Gauradas Geminus Germanicus Caesar Glaucus of Nicopolis Glaucus of Athens Glycon Gregory of Nazianzus Hadrian Emperor Hecataeus of Thasos Hedylus Helladius Hegemon of Thasus Hegesippus Heliodorus Heracleides of Sinope Heraclitus of Halicarnassus Hermocreon Hermodorus Herodicus of Babylon Homer Honestus Ignatius Magister Grammaticorum Ion of Chios Irenaeus Refendarius Isidorus of Aegae Isidorus Scholasticus Joannes Barbocollas Barbucallus Julian emperor Julian Antecessor Julianus the Egyptian Julius Diocles Laco Leon the philosopher Leonidas of Alexandria Leonidas of Tarentum Leontius Scholasticus Libanius Lollius Bassus Lucian of Samosata Lucillius Macedonius of Thessalonica Consul Magnus the Physician Marcus Argentarius Marcus the younger Marianus Scholasticus Marinus of Neapolis Meleager of Gadara Menander Comicus Menander Protector Menecrates of Smyrna or Samos Mesomedes Metrodorus Michael Chartophylax Mimnermus Mnasalcas Moero of Byzantium Moschus of Syracuse Mundus Munatius Quintus Mucius Scaevola Augur Myrinus Nestor of Laranda Nicaenetus of Samos Nicander Nicarchus Nicias Nicodemus of Heraclea Nicomachus Nilus Scholasticus Nossis of Locri Numenius of Tarsus Oenomaus Palladas of Alexandria Pamphilus of Alexandria Pancrates Pantelius Parmenion of Macedonia Patricius Paulus Silentiarius Perses Phaedimus Phaennus Phalaecus Phanias Philemon Philetas of Samos Philip V of Macedon King Philippus of Thessalonica Philiscus of Miletus Philodemus the Epicurean Philostorgius Philostratus Philoxenus Phocas Diaconus Phocylides Photius the Patriarch Pinytus Pisander Piso ca 100 AD author of 11 424 otherwise unknown Plato Plato Comicus Plato Junior Polemon Pollianus Polyaenus Julius of Sardis Polystratus Pompeius the younger Posidippus Praxiteles Proclus Ptolemaeus Pythagoras Quintus Quintus Maecius Rarus Rhianus Rufinus Rufinus Domesticus Sabinus Grammaticus Samus Sappho Secundus of Tarentum Serapion Satyrius Scythinus Simmias of Rhodes Simmias Grammaticus Simonides of Ceos Sophronius Patriarch of Jerusalem Speusippus Statyllius Flaccus Stephanus Grammaticus Straton of Sardis Synesius Philosophus Synesius Scholasticus Thallus of Miletus Theaetetus Scholasticus Theocritus Theodoridas Theodoretus Grammaticus Theodorus Proconsul Theon of Alexandria father of Hypatia Theosebeia Thucydides the historian Thyillus Thymocles Tiberius Illustrius Timocreon of Rhodes Timon of Athens Trajan Emperor Troilus Grammaticus Tryphon Tullius Laureas Tullius Sabinus Tymnes Xeocritus Xenophanes Zelotus Zenobius Grammaticus Zenodotus Zonas of Sardis Diodorus Zosimus of ThasosSee also EditList of anthologies of Greek epigramsNotes Edit Anthony Grafton Glenn W Most Salvatore Settis 2010 The Classical Tradition Harvard University Press p 410 ISBN 9780674035720 Retrieved September 2 2011 The Greek Anthology with an English Translation ETANA Electronic Tools and Ancient Near East Archives Retrieved September 2 2011 Explanatory text for the book of W R Paton entitled The Greek Anthology with an English Translation 1916 the same text is also at the introduction in page http www ancientlibrary com greek anthology before the facsimile copy of the pages of the same book a b c d Garnett 1911 p 94 Garnett 1911 pp 94 95 a b c Garnett 1911 p 95 Liddell Scott Greek Lexicon Names of epigrammatists where found in codd are added in brackets Anthologia Palatina Planudea ed F Dubner Paris D 1864 72 ed H Stadtmuller vols i ii 1 iii 1 all published Leipzig T 1894 1906 H Beckby Munich 1965 8 2 4 vols I XV Anthologia Palatina XVI Appendix Planudea AP APl Appendix nova epigrammatum ed E Cougny Paris D 1890 App Anth A S F Gow D L Page The Greek Anthology 1 Hellenistic Epigrams Cambridge 1965 2 vols HE G P 2 The Garland of Philip and Some Contemporary Epigrams Cambridge 1968 Garl G P Epigrammata Graeca D L Page OCT 1975 EG P Further Greek Epigrams Epigrams before A D 50 from the Greek Anthology and Other Sources D L Page revised by R D Dawe J Diggle Cambridge 1981 FGE P Sch AP Scholia ad epigrammata arithmetica in Anthologia Graeca scholia recentiora in Diophanti Alexandri opera omnia P Tannery vol 2 Teubner Leipzig 1895 S 1974 a b c d Garnett 1911 p 96 References Edit This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Garnett Richard 1911 Anthology In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 2 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 94 96 External links Edit Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article Palatine Anthology in the original Greek Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article Anthology of Planudes in the original Greek Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology by J W Mackail Project Gutenberg The Greek Anthology W R Paton ed 5 vol London William Heinemann New York G P Putnam s sons 1927 28 vol 1 vol 2 vol 3 vol 4 vol 5 Greek Anthology English translation by W R Paton arranged by poet rather than by book at attalus org Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology by J W Mackail edited with excerpts in Greek unicode and a search engine Plaintext of Vol 1 Vol 2 Vol 3 Vol 4 and Vol 5 on Google Books Epigrams by Women from the Greek Anthology Archived 2011 06 06 at the Wayback Machine from Diotima Maximus Planudes Archived 2005 12 18 at the Wayback Machine from William Smith s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology 1867 v 3 pp 384 390 includes a detailed Literary History of the Greek Anthology Read Birds and Beasts of the Greek Anthology by Norman Douglas at Project Gutenberg Australia Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Greek Anthology amp oldid 1145787440, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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