Praxilla (mid 5th century BCE) was a poet from the Greek polis Sicyon[1], a city renowned as a haven for artists. She often performed in Athens{NOTE:Ian Plant, Praxilla, Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries(1803) Chawton House Library Series: Women’s Memoirs, ed. Gina Luria Walker, Memoirs of Women Writers Part II (Pickering & Chatto: London, 2013), vol. 10, 81, editorial notes, 572.}[2] where she became famous, particularly for her drinking songs.[3] Only eight fragments of her work have survived as quotations repeated by later writers. Among Praxilla’s songs were a variety of hymns; scolia, drinking songs for parties from which respectable women were excluded, suggesting that Praxilla may have been a courtesan (hetaera) or a professional musician;[4] and Dithyrambs, which were choral songs in honor of the god Dionysus and were often sung at festival competitions.[5] Praxilla is believed to have invented her own dactylic meter, which is appropriately named the Praxilleion meter.[6]
She had many admirers, including Antipater of Thessalonica who named her first amongst his list of nine “immortal-tongued” female poets, and the sculptor Lysippus who made a bronze statue of her.[7] However, while her verses were famous, later interpretations of her work were not always positive. The comedic playwright Aristophanes parodied her in two of his plays, Wasps (422 BCE) and Tesmophoriazusae (c. 411 BCE).[8] One critic in particular, Zenobius, tells us that the phrase ‘sillier than Praxilla’s Adonis’ was for a time a common saying used to describe stupid people. One theory is that this interpretation was due to a ignorance of Praxilla’s context, rather than any actual feeble-mindedness. One of her song fragments mentions women’s activities at the festival of Adonia, the celebration of the god Adonis, and those practices may have seemed ridiculous to later cultures that did not understand them.[9]
Praxilla’s surviving fragments:[10]
- Hymn to Adonis
The most beautiful thing I leave is the light of the sun,
second are the shining stars and the face of the moon,
and cucumbers, and apples, and pears too.
- Achilles
But I never persuaded the anger in your heart.
- Scolion
Learn the story of Admetus, my friend, love good people,
and keep clear of cowards, knowing the cowards’ thanks is very small.
- Scolion
My friend, watch out for a scorpion under every stone.
- Scolion (Praxilleion)
Through the window you look so beautifully,
you virgin (your head), you bride (down below).
6.
But Praxilla of Sicyon says that Chrysippus was carried off by Zeus.
7.
Praxilla wrote that Carneius was the son of Europa and Zeus, and Apollo and Leto raised him.
8.
The Carneia: Praxilla says that it was named after Carnus, the son of Zeus and Europa, who was Apollo’s eromenos.
[1]Mary Hays, “Praxilla,” Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women of all Ages and Countries (6 volumes) (London: R. Phillips, 1803), vol. 6, 79, on 79.
[2] Ian Plant, “Praxilla,” Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries(1803) Chawton House Library Series: Women’s Memoirs, ed. Gina Luria Walker, Memoirs of Women Writers Part II (Pickering & Chatto: London, 2013), vol. 10, 81, editorial notes 572, on 572.
[3] Josephine Balmer, Piecing Together the Fragments: Translating Classical Verse, Creating Contemporary Poetry. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 112.
[4] Ian Plant, Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 38.
[5] Plant, “Praxilla,” vol. 10, 81, editorial notes 572, on 572.
[6] Balmer, Piecing Together the Fragments, 112.
[7] Plant, Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome, 38.
[8] Plant, Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome, 38.
[9] Balmer, Piecing Together the Fragments, 112-113.
[10] Plant, Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome, 39.
Bibliography
Atchity, Kenneth John and Rosemary McKenna. The Classical Greek Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Balmer, Josephine. Piecing Together the Fragments: Translating Classical Verse, Creating Contemporary Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Barnstone, Aliki and Willis Barnstone. A Book of women poets from antiquity to now. New York: Schocken Books, 1980.
Dillon, Matthew and Lynda Garland. Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Alexander. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Easterling, P. E., and Bernard M. W. Knox. The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Volume 1, Greek Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Fowler, Barbara Hughes. Archaic Greek Poetry: An Anthology. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992.
Hays, Mary. Female Biography; or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women of all Ages and Countries (6 volumes). London: R. Phillips, 1803.
Knox, Bernard. The Norton book of classical literature. New York: Norton, 1993.
Lefkowitz, Mary R. and Maureen B Fant (trans). Women’s life in Greece and Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
Lesky, Albin; James Willis and Cornelis De Heer. A History of Greek Literature. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1996.
Plant, Ian. “Praxilla.” Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries 1803. Chawton House Library Series: Women’s Memoirs, ed. Gina Luria Walker, Memoirs of Women Writers Part II. Pickering & Chatto: London, 2013, vol. 10, 81, editorial notes, 572.
—Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004.
Poole, Adrian and Jeremy Maule. The Oxford book of classical verse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Rayor, Diane J. Sappho’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Snyde, Jane McIntosh. The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1989.
Wilson, Katharina M. An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers, Volume 1. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991.
Resources:
Brooklyn Museum
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art: The Dinner Party: Heritage Floor: Praxilla
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/praxilla.php
Page citation:
Lindsay Smith. “Praxilla.” Project Continua (January 30, 2014): Ver. 1, [date accessed], http://www.projectcontinua.org/praxilla/
Tags: Ancient, Europe, Musicians, Poets
