Editing Mimnermus (section)

==Poetic style==
[[File:Tydeus Ismene Louvre E640.jpg|right|thumb|Corinthian vase depicting Mimnermus's original account of Ismene's death. Tydeus is depicted in black (usual for a male), Ismene and her fleeing lover Theoclymenus are white (usual for females and appropriate for an adulterous male on the run).<ref>James I Porter (ed), ''Construction of the Classical Body'', University of Michigan Press (1999), pages 13, 38 [https://books.google.com/books?id=uah8nkFBZ04C&pg=PA38 Google preview]</ref>]]
Elegy has been described as  "a variation upon the heroic [[hexameter]], in the direction of [[lyric poetry]],"<ref>W.R.Hardie, ''Res Metrica'' 49, cited by David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), page xxiv-v</ref> and, in Mimnermus, this takes the form of a variation on Homer, as appears for example in Fragment 1, quoted below, about which one modern scholar had this to say"
{{blockquote|Mimnermus' dependence on Homer is striking: it is amusing to see him express such un-Homeric thoughts as those of fr.1 in language which is almost entirely Homer's. Homer's vocabulary, line-endings, formulas, similes, all reappear, but from this material Mimnermus creates quite a distinctive poetry of easy grace and pleasing rhythm.|David A. Campbell<ref>David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), pages 223-4</ref>}}  
::::::Fragment 1
::{{lang|grc|τίς δὲ βίος, τί δὲ τερπνὸν ἄτερ χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης;}}
:::{{lang|grc|τεθναίην, ὅτε μοι μηκέτι ταῦτα μέλοι,}}
::{{lang|grc|κρυπταδίη φιλότης καὶ μείλιχα δῶρα καὶ εὐνή·}}
:::{{lang|grc|οἷ’ ἥβης ἄνθεα γίγνεται ἁρπαλέα}}
::{{lang|grc|ἀνδράσιν ἠδὲ γυναιξίν· ἐπεὶ δ’ ὀδυνηρὸν ἐπέλθῃ}}
:::{{lang|grc|γῆρας, ὅ τ’ αἰσχρὸν ὁμῶς καὶ κακὸν ἄνδρα τιθεῖ,}}
::{{lang|grc|αἰεί μιν φρένας ἀμφὶ κακαὶ τείρουσι μέριμναι,}}
:::{{lang|grc|οὐδ’ αὐγὰς προσορῶν τέρπεται ἠελίου,}}
::{{lang|grc|ἀλλ’ ἐχθρὸς μὲν παισίν, ἀτίμαστος δὲ γυναιξίν·}}
:::{{lang|grc|οὕτως ἀργαλέον γῆρας ἔθηκε θεός.}}
<br />
Typically, the elegiac couplet enabled a poet to develop his ideas in brief, striking phrases, often made more memorable by internal rhyme in the shorter,  pentameter line.<ref>David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Press (1982), page xxv</ref> Mimnermus employs the internal rhyme in the pentameter lines 2 ({{lang|grc|μοι... μέλοι}}) and 4 ({{lang|grc|ἄνθεα...ἁρπαλέα}}). Here is the same poem paraphrased in English to imitate the rhythms of an [[elegy]], with half-rhymes employed in the same lines 2 (far...for) and 4 (youth...bloom):

<br />
::What is life, what is sweet, if it is missing golden [[Aphrodite]]?
:::Death would be better by far than to live with no time for
::Amorous assignations and the gift of tenderness and bedrooms,
:::All of those things that give youth all of its covetted bloom,
::Both for men and for women. But when there arrives the vexatiousness
:::Of old age, even good looks alter to unsightliness
::And the heart wears away under the endlessness of its anxieties:
:::There is no joy anymore then in the light of the sun;
::In children there is found hate and in women there is found no respect.
:::So difficult has old age been made for us all by God!{{Citation needed|reason=No source for the translation|date=February 2021}}
<br /> 
Commenting on the poem, [[Maurice Bowra]] observed that "...after the challenging, flaunting opening we are led through a swift account of youth, and then as we approach the horrors of old age, the verse becomes slower, the sentences shorter, the stops more emphatic, until the poet closes with a short, damning line of summary."<ref>Maurice Bowra, ''E.G.E.''19, quoted by David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Press (1982), page 224</ref>

Of all the other early elegists, only [[Archilochus]] might be compared with Mimnermus for effective use of language,<ref>Douglas E. Gerber, ''A Companion to Greek Lyric Poets'', Brill (1997) page 112</ref> both being lifelong poets of outstanding skill.<ref>J.P. Barron and P.E. Easterling, 'Early Greek Elegy', P. Easterling and B. Knox (ed.s), ''The Cambridge History of Classical Literature:Greek Literature'', Cambridge University Press (1985), page 133-34</ref>

===Comments by other poets===

====Solon====
Addressing Mimnermus and criticizing him for his stated wish to die at sixty years of age, as quoted above in [[Mimnermus#Life and work|Life and work]], the Athenian sage said:
{{Verse translation|italicsoff=y|lang=grc|
ἀλλ᾽ εἴ μοι κἂν νῦν ἔτι πείσεαι, ἔξελε τοῦτον:{{emdash}}
:μηδὲ μέγαιρ᾽ ὅτι σεῦ λῷον ἐπεφρασάμην:{{emdash}}
καὶ μεταποίησον, Λιγυαιστάδη, ὧδε δ᾽ ἄειδε:
:'''ὀγδωκονταέτη μοῖρα κίχοι θανάτου.'''<ref>Solon quoted by Diogenes Laertius 1.60</ref>
|
But if even now you will listen to me, remove this (i.e. Mimnermus's objectionable verse){{emdash}}
:and do not be offended because my thoughts are better than yours{{emdash}}
and changing it, Ligyaistades, sing as follows:
:'''May my fated death come at eighty.'''<ref>Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb (1999), page 141</ref>}}

====Hermesianax====
{{Blockquote|And Mimnermus who, after much suffering, discovered the sweet sound and breath given off by the soft pentameter, was on fire for Nanno...<ref>Hermesianax fr.7.35-37 Powell ap. Ath. 13.597f, cited by Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb (1999), page 75</ref>}}

====Callimachus====
Defining the kind of poetry he liked and believed best suited to his own, much later times, the Alexandrian scholar-poet commended Mimnermus thus [brackets indicate gaps in the text]:
{{Blockquote|Of the two [types of poetry] it was his slender [verses?], not the big lady, that revealed Mimnermus' sweetness.}}

====Propertius====
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|la|plus in amore valet Mimnermi versus Homero:
:carmina mansuetus lenia quaerit Amor.}}<ref>Propertius 1.9.11-12</ref>
|
In love the verses of Mimnermus prevail over those of Homer.
:Gentle love calls for soft songs.<ref>Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb (1999), page 79</ref>}}

====Horace====
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|la|si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore iocisque
nil est iucundum, vivas in amore iocisque.}}<ref>Horace, ''epist.'' 1.6.65-66</ref>
|
If, as Mimnermus believes, without love and jests
There is no joy, may you live amid love and jests.<ref>Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb (1999), page 79</ref>}}