Callimachus

Callimachus of Cyrene (c. 310 BC – c. 240 BC) was a Greek poet, critic and bibliographer, of Libyan birth. He is considered the most influential figure of the Alexandrian school.

Quotes

 * A big book is a big misfortune.
 * Fragment 465; translation by A. W. Bulloch, in P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox, in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature (1989) vol. 1, part 4, p. 30
 * Variant translation: A great book is like great evil.


 * Nothing unattested do I sing.
 * Fragment 612; translation by A. W. Bulloch, in P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox, in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature (1989) vol. 1, part 4, p. 30


 * Ὅμηρον ἐξ Ὁμήρου σαφηνίζειν
 * To explain Homer with Homer
 * Maxim attributed to Callimachus; see Ancient Scholarship and Grammar: Archetypes, Concepts and Contexts (2011) edited by Stephanos Matthaios, Franco Montanari, Αντώνιος Ρεγκάκος, p. 108


 * [...] ὅσσα τ' ὀδόντωνἔνδοθι νείαιράν τ' εἰς ἀχάριστον ἔδυ, καὶ τῶν οὐδὲν ἔμεινεν ἐς αὔριον· ὅσσα δ' ἀκουαῖς εἰσεθέμην, ἔτι μοι μοῦνα πάρεστι τάδε.
 * "and of all that passed my teeth and plunged into my ungrateful belly, of these too nothing remained into the morning; but only this do I still possess, what I put into my ears."
 * Aetia, Book II. Fr. 43. Lines 14-17.
 * variant translation: All that I have given to my stomach has disappeared, and I have retained all the fodder that I gave to my spirit.

Epigrams
ἤγαγεν ἐμνήσθην δ᾿ ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι ἠέλιον λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. ... They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
 * Εἰπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν μόρον ἐς δέ με δάκρυ
 * They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
 * Epigram 2, translation by William Johnson Cory in Ionica (1858) p. 7

The Muses are ten, the Graces are four; Stella's wit is so charming, so sweet her fair face; She shines a new Venus, a Muse, and a Grace.
 * Two goddesses now must Cyprus adore;
 * Epigram 5; translation by Jonathan Swift, cited from Anthologia Polyglotta (1849), edited by Henry Wellesley, p. 47


 * Here sleeps Saon, of Acanthus, son of Dicon, a holy sleep: say not that the good die.
 * Epigram 10; translation from The Works of Hesiod, Callimachus and Theognis (1856), edited by J. Banks, p. 194


 * O Charidas, what of the under world? Great darkness. And what of the resurrection? A lie. And Pluto? A fable; we perish utterly.
 * Epigram 14; translation from Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology (1906), edited by J. W. Mackail, p. 171


 * Set a thief to catch a thief.
 * Epigram 43; translation by Robert Allason Furness, from Poems of Callimachus (1931), p. 103


 * The Graces, three erewhile, are three no more; A fourth is come with perfume sprinkled o'er. 'Tis Berenice blest and fair; were she Away the Graces would no Graces be.
 * Callimachus, Epigram V. Goldwin Smith's rendering.
 * Two goddesses now must Cyprus adore; The Muses are ten, and the Graces are four; Stella's wit is so charming, so sweet her fair face, She shines a new Venus, a Muse, and a Grace.
 * Callimachus, Epigram V. Swift's rendering. See Meleager of Gadara, in Anthologia Græca, IX. 16, Volume II, p. 62 (Ed. 1672).

Criticism

 * His blend of sensitivity and detachment, elegance, wit, and learning, had a profound influence on later Roman poets, especially Catullus, Ovid, and Propertius (the last thought of himself as the Roman Callimachus), and through them on the whole European literary tradition.
 * D. E. W. Wormell, in The Penguin Companion to Literature (1969) vol. 4, p. 47


 * The most outstanding intellect of this generation, the greatest poet that the Hellenistic age produced, and historically one of the most important figures in the development of Graeco-Roman (and hence European) literature.
 * A. W. Bulloch, in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature (1989), edited by P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox, vol. 1, part 4, p. 9