music.wikisort.org - Poet

Leonidas of Tarentum (/liːˈɒnɪdəs/; Doric Greek: Λεωνίδας ὁ Ταραντῖνος) was an epigrammatist and lyric poet. He lived in Italy in the third century B.C. at Tarentum, on the coast of Apulia (Magna Graecia). Over a hundred of his epigrams are present in the Greek Anthology compiled in the 10th and 14th centuries. Most of his poems are dedicatory or sepulchral.

The youth of Leonidas coincided with the first awakening of the Greek cities on the south coast of Italy to the danger threatening them from Rome and their first attempts to seek protection from the warlike kings of Epirus. One of Leonidas's earliest extent poems chronicles a journey which he himself took to the court of Neoptolemus, son of Aeacides, seeking promise of protection. Soon after the poet's arrival, Neoptolemus was assassinated by his more warlike cousin, Pyrrhus, who eagerly agreed to become the Greeks' champion, and Leonidas returned to Italy to rally his countrymen for war.[1]

Although he became quite famous after his death, Leonidas was only able to earn a bare subsistence from his poetry during his lifetime. In one grim poem, he addresses the mice that share his meal tub, reminding them that he needs only one lump of salt and two barley cakes for himself.[1]

According to the translator Edwyn Bevan, "the thought of death pervades most of the poetry of Leonidas ... there does not seem to be for Leonidas any feeling of transcendental meaning to life ... Leonidas seems almost to find satisfaction in thinking that outside this little sunlit world of every day there is nothing but opaque blackness into which the figures of this world one by one disappear".[2]

References

English translations

• The Poems of Leonidas of Tarentum (1931) Introduced and Translated by Edwyn Bevan, Oxford: The Clarendon Press. (The only complete English translation of specifically Leonidas' works in one volume.)

External links

• Poems by Leonidas of Tarentum – English translations
• Leonidas of Tarentum: translation of all surviving epigrams at attalus.org; adapted from W.R.Paton (1916–18)

На других языках

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- [en] Leonidas of Tarentum

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[es] Leónidas de Tarento

Leónidas de Tarento (Λεωνίδας ο Ταραντίνος) fue un poeta griego del siglo III a. C., autor de muchos epigramas, de gran habilidad técnica y elegancia en el empleo de términos populares.

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[fr] Léonidas de Tarente

Léonidas de Tarente est un épigrammatiste grec dont l'activité se situe vraisemblablement au IIIe siècle av. J.-C. Une centaine de ses épigrammes est conservée dans l’Anthologie grecque.

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[ru] Леонид Тарентский

Леони́д из города Таранто (на юге Италии) — поэт эллинистического времени. Поэт-скиталец, Леонид в своем творчестве ярко отразил свой интерес и уважение к «маленьким людям». Поэт описывает жизнь трудового народа — рыбаков, пастухов, мелких ремесленников и прочих незаметных тружеников, которым посвящаются его овеянные грустью эпиграммы-эпитафии, реалистически освещающие их жизнь.

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