Challenging Gender Roles: The Poet Corinna, Pausanias, Descriptio Graeciae, 9.22.3

 There is a famous monument in the heart of the city for Corinna, the only famous poet from Tanagra; it lies in the Gymnasium. Corinna is depicted with a ribbon in her hair, the trophy of her victory over the poet Pindar in Thebes. It seems to me that she won because of her dialect; she didn’t use the Doric tongue (which Pindar used), but rather the Aeolian dialect. The fact that she was super pretty [if the she looks anything like the statue of her] probably helped her win, too.

Corinnae quidem, quae sola apud Tanagraeos cantica fecit, in celebri urbis loco est monumentum: in gymnasio ipsa picta est, taenia redimita: victoriae illud insigne, quod Thebis carmine Pindarum vicerit. Vicisse ea arbitror linguae causa. Neque enim Dorica, uti Pindarus, cecinit, sed ea quam essent facile Aeolenses percepturi. Quod autem fuerit ea sui temporis feminarum formosissima, non est difficile ex ipsius imagine coniicere.

[3] Κορίννης δέ, ἣ μόνη δὴ ἐν Τανάγρᾳ ᾁσματα ἐποίησε, ταύτης ἔστι μὲν μνῆμα ἐν περιφανεῖ τῆς πόλεως, ἔστι δὲ ἐν τῷ γυμνασίῳ γραφή, ταινίᾳ τὴν κεφαλὴν ἡ Κόριννα ἀναδουμένη τῆς νίκης ἕνεκα ἣν Πίνδαρον ᾁσματι ἐνίκησεν ἐν Θήβαις. φαίνεται δέ μοι νικῆσαι τῆς διαλέκτου τε ἕνεκα, ὅτι ᾖδεν οὐ τῇ φωνῇ τῇ Δωρίδι ὥσπερ ὁ Πίνδαρος ἀλλὰ ὁποίᾳ συνήσειν ἔμελλον Αἰολεῖς, καὶ ὅτι ἦν γυναικῶν τότε δὴ καλλίστη τὸ εἶδος, εἴ τι τῇ εἰκόνι δεῖ τεκμαίρεσθαι.

--Pausanias, Descriptio Graeciae IX.xxii.3; Translated into Latin by Romulus Amaseus (1696)

 

 Pausanias was a Greek writer who lived during the era of the “Five Good Emperors.” His work, the Description of Greece, is an important source for geographical, historical, archaeological, and cultural information about ancient Greece.

 

The 9 Earthly Muses: Sappho and Her Sisters, Greek Anthology 9.26

Sappho and the Earthly Muses

Name:  Antipater of Sidon Date:    2nd – 1st century BCE Region:     Sidon [modern Lebanon] Citation:     Greek Anthology 9.26

Helicon and the Pierian mountains have nourished the following divinely-inspired women with song:

·                      Praxilla

·                     Myrus

·                     Anyte, the female Homer

·                     Sappho, the glory of pretty-haired Lesbia

·                     Erinna

·                     Famous Telesilla

·                     And you,Corinna!, who celebrates Athena’s raging spear in song,

·                     Woman-tongued Nossis

·                      Sweet-tongued Myrtis.  

All these women’s words will outlast the ages.

Great Heaven has nine Muses,

But earth has created nine of its own,

Women who will bring eternal joy to mankind.   

τάσδε θεογλώσσους Ἑλικὼν ἔθρεψε γυναῖκας ὕμνοις, καὶ Μακεδὼν Πιερίας σκόπελος, Πρήξιλλαν, Μοιρώ, Ἀνύτης στόμα, θῆλυν Ὅμηρον, Λεσβιάδων Σαπφὼ κόσμον ἐυπλοκάμων, Ἤρινναν, Τελέσιλλαν ἀγακλέα, καὶ σέ, Κόριννα, θοῦριν Ἀθηναίης ἀσπίδα μελψαμέναν, Νοσσίδα θηλύγλωσσον, ἰδὲ γλυκυαχέα Μύρτιν, πάσας ἀενάων ἐργάτιδας σελίδων. ἐννέα μὲν Μούσας μέγας Οὐρανός, ἐννέα δ᾽ αὐτὰς γαῖα τέκεν, θνατοῖς ἄφθιτον εὐφροσύναν.

Sunt enim doctae, muliebria nomina, vates quas Helicon aluit Pieriumque iugum. Praxilla et Myro facundaque gloria Lesbi [Sappho], et quae vix Anyte cedit, Homere, tibi. Est Erinna etiam Telesillaque, tuque Corinna, Quae docta clypeum Palladis arte canis: Et Myrtis placida et versu quoque femina Nossis, Omnes perpetui carminis artifices. Aetheris aequavit tellus fecunda labores, Ille novem Musas protulit, ista novem. Translated into Latin by Hugo Grotius

Antipater of Sidon [2nd – 1st century BCE, modern Lebanon] was a Greek poet who lived under Roman rule during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. Dozens of his poems were preserved in the Greek Anthology.

Challenging Gender Roles: Corinna, Greek Poet: Suda K.2087

Corinna the Poet Defeats Pindar Five Times!

Name:    The Suda Date:      10th century CE      Region:    Unknown   Citation:    Suda K.2087

   Corinna: The daughter of Achelodorus and Procratia. She was either Theban or Tanagrean. She was a student of Myrtis. Her nickname was Myia (“The Fly”). She was a lyric poet. It is said that she beat the poet Pindar five times in a competition. She wrote five books of poetry, both of epigrams and pastoral poems.

Κορίννα, Ἀχελωοδώρου καὶ Προκρατίας, Θηβαία ἢ Ταναγραία, μαθήτρια Μύρτιδος: ἐπωνόμαστο δὲ Μυῖα: λυρική. ἐνίκησε δὲ πεντάκις, ὡς λόγος, Πίνδαρον. ἔγραψε βιβλία ε#, καὶ ἐπιγράμματα καὶ νόμους λυρικούς.

Corinna, Achelodori & Procratiae filia, Thebana vel Tanagrea, discipula Myrtidis, Myia cognominata: Lyrica. Quinquies, ut ferunt, Pindarum vicit. Scripsit (carminum) libros V. itemque epigrammata & cantica lyrica. Translated into Latin by Christianus Wolff

The Suda is a literary encyclopedia created in the 10th century CE by an anonymous Byzantine scholar.