Ежелгі грек ақыны Алкман: Өмір және шығармашылығы

Ancient Greek lyric poet from Sparta

Alcman ('/æ//l//k//m//ən/; wikt:Ἀλκμάν (Ἀλκμάν]]) Alkmán; fl. 7th century BC) was an Ancient Greek choral lyric poet from Sparta. He is the earliest representative of the Alexandrian canon of the Nine Lyric Poets. He wrote six books of choral poetry, most of which is now lost; his poetry survives in quotation from other ancient authors and on fragmentary papyri discovered in Egypt. His poetry was composed in the local Doric dialect with Homeric influences. Based on his surviving fragments, his poetry was mostly hymns, and seems to have been composed in long stanzas made up of lines in several different meters.

Alcman's dates are uncertain, but he was probably active in the late seventh century BC. The name of his mother is not known; his father may have been called either Damas or Titarus. Alcman's nationality was disputed even in antiquity. The records of the ancient authors were often deduced from biographic readings of their poetry, and the details are often untrustworthy. Antipater of Thessalonica wrote that poets have "many mothers" and that the continents of Europe and Asia both claimed Alcman as their son. Frequently assumed to have been born in Sardis, capital of ancient Lydia, the Suda claims that Alcman was actually a Laconian from Messoa. The compositeness of his dialect may have helped to maintain the uncertainty of his origins, but the many references to Lydian and Asian culture in Alcman's poetry must have played a considerable role in the tradition of Alcman's Lydian origin. Thus Alcman claims he learned his skills from the "strident partridges" (caccabides), a bird native to Asia Minor and not naturally found in Greece. The ancient scholars seem to refer to one particular song, in which the chorus says: "He was no rustic man, nor clumsy (not even in the view of unskilled men?) nor Thessalian by race nor an Erysichaean shepherd: he was from lofty Sardis." Yet, given that there was a discussion, it cannot have been certain who was the third person of this fragment. Some modern scholars defend his Lydian origin on the basis of the language of some fragments or the content. However, Sardis of the 7th century BC was a cosmopolitan city. The implicit and explicit references to Lydian culture may be a means of describing the girls of the choruses as fashionable. One tradition, going back to Aristotle, holds that Alcman came to Sparta as a slave to the family of Agesidas (= Hagesidamus? ), by whom he was eventually emancipated because of his great skill. Aristotle reported that it was believed Alcman died from a pustulant infestation of lice (phthiriasis), but he may have been mistaken for the philosopher Alcmaeon of Croton. According to Pausanias, he is buried in Sparta next to the shrine of Helen of Troy.

There were six books of Alcman's choral poetry in antiquity (c. 50 60 hymns), but they were lost at the threshold of the Middle Ages, and Alcman was known only through fragmentary quotations in other Greek authors until the discovery of a papyrus in 1855(?) in a tomb near the second pyramid at Saqqâra in Egypt. The fragment, which is now kept at the Louvre in Paris, contains approximately 100 verses of a so called partheneion, i. e. a song performed by a chorus of young unmarried women. In the 1960s, many more fragments were published in the collection of the Egyptian papyri found in a dig at an ancient garbage dump at Oxyrhynchus. Most of these fragments contain poems (partheneia), but there are also other kinds of hymns among them.

To judge from his larger fragments, Alcman's poetry was normally strophic: Different metres are combined into long stanzas (9 14 lines), which are repeated several times. One popular metre is the dactylic tetrameter (in contrast to the dactylic hexameter of Homer and Hesiod).

Alcman could have composed songs for Spartan boys as well. However, the only statement in support of this idea comes from Sosibius, a Spartan historian from the 2nd century BC. He says that songs of Alcman were performed during the Gymnopaedia festival (according to Athenaeus):

Greek Lyric II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympis to Alcman (Loeb Classical Library) translated by David A. Campbell (June 1989) Harvard University Press (Original Greek with facing page English translations, an excellent starting point for students with a serious interest in ancient lyric poetry. Nearly one third of the text is devoted to Alcman's work.) Lyra Graeca I: Terpander, Alcman, Sappho and Alcaeus (Loeb Classical Library) translated by J. M. Edmonds (1922) Cambridge MA: Harvard UP; London: Heinemann) (Original Greek with facing page English translations, now in the public domain.) Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets translated by Willis Barnstone, Schoken Books Inc., New York (paperback 1988) (A collection of modern English translations suitable for a general audience, includes the entirety of Alcman's parthenion and 16 additional poetic fragments by him along with a brief history of the poet.) Alcman. Introduction, texte critique, témoignages, traduction et commentaire. Edidit Claudius Calame. Romae in Aedibus Athenaei 1983. (Original Greek with French translations and commentaries; it has the most comprehensive critical apparatus.) Poetarum melicorum Graecorum fragmenta. Vol. 1. Alcman, Stesichorus, Ibycus. Edidit Malcolm Davies. Oxonii: e typographeo Clarendoniano 1991. Greek lyric poetry: a commentary on selected larger pieces. G. O. Hutchinson. Oxford University Press 2001.