Friday Poetry: Corinna

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone has a good weekend planned. I have another busy weekend of work but I also have a family get together as well which will be nice.

I have been studying a lot of female poets from Ancient Greece for my dissertation so I have chosen one of the poems by Corinna. It sadly is not complete and the parts in brackets have been put in by the translator. Sadly, it is only fragments that survive from the female poets of Ancient Greece.

Songs of Old

On me my Muse has served her summons
to sing those beautiful songs of old
for Tanagran women in their dawn-
white dresses; as the city takes such
pleasure in my teasing-trilling songs.

for whatever great [deeds great heroes
might perform,] still taller tales [are told,]
the earth their open field for battle.
And so I've reset our fathers' tales,
[reworked their crown with these new jewels]
as I take up my lyre for my girls;

Often I've polished tales of Cephisus,
our country's own first founding-father,
often of Lord Orion, the fifty
high-and-mighty sons he brought into
being - with help from their mother nymphs;

and then at last I sang of Libya,
[Thebes' fair fore-mother...]

Corinna

Happy Reading

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