Biōnos tou Smyrnaiou, kai Moschou tou Syrakosiou, ta Sōzomena = Bionis Smyrnæl, et Moschi Syracusani, quæ Supersunt

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by Bion of Smyrna

Bionos tou Smyrnaiou
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Title not held by The Wolf Law Library
at the College of William & Mary.
 
Author Bion of Smyrna
Editor
Translator
Published Oxonii: J. Barrett
Date 1748
Edition
Language
Volumes volume set
Pages
Desc.


Oxonii: e Typographeo Clarendoniano, prostant venales apud Johan. Barrett, 1748.

Bion of Smyrna (fl. c. 100 BC)[1] and Moschus of Syracuse (fl. c. 150 BC)[2] were minor Greek Bucolic, or pastoral, poets, and successors of the first Bucolic poet, Theocritus.[3] Little is known about either poet, and few of their works survive.

Most of what is known about Bion derives from the Lament for Bion, an elegy written by one of his students upon his death. He was born in Smyrna, now a part of Turkey, and lived in Sicily.[4] According to his student, he was poisoned to death.[5] Bion’s only surviving works are 17 fragments of poems from his Bucolica, and the Lament for Adonis, for which he is best known.[6] Though labeled a Bucolic poet, the “pastoral element in his work is slight.”[7]

Like Bion, Moschus is considered a Bucolic poet even though most of his surviving poetry is not pastoral in nature.[8] He was also a grammarian, though none of his works on grammar survive.[9] His extant works include five hexameter poems, an epigram on Eros as a ploughman, “a hexameter dialogue between Heracles’ wife [Megara]…and his mother Alcmena,”[10] and a longer poem entitled Love the Runaway.[11] Moschus is also the probable author of the short epic Europa.[12] Some scholars have attributed the Lament for Bion to Moschus, and consequently assumed he was a student of Bion’s and the third, rather than the second, of the Bucolic poets.[13] This attribution is now considered improbable.[14]

The 1748 Oxford edition of the surviving works of Bion and Moschus, edited by John Heskin, is considered a “very elegant edition.”[15] It includes a short preface and a note on the lives of Bion and Moschus, both in Latin, the poems in the original Greek with Latin translations on the facing pages, and extensive notes.


Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

See also

References

  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. "Bion," accessed June 5, 2015.
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. "Moschus," accessed June 5, 2015.
  3. "pastoral poetry," in The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ed. M.C. Howatson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), accessed June 5, 2015.
  4. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. "Bion."
  5. J.M. Edmonds, trans., introduction to Greek Bucolic Poets, the Loeb Classical Library 28 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1912), xxiii.
  6. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. "Bion."
  7. "Bion," in The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ed. M.C. Howatson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), accessed June 5, 2015.
  8. Edmonds, xxii.
  9. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. "Moschus."
  10. "Moschus," in The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ed. M.C. Howatson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), accessed June 5, 2015.
  11. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. "Moschus."
  12. Ibid.
  13. M.J. Chapman, ed., The Greek Pastoral Poets, Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus (London: James Frasier, 215 Regent Street, 1836), 406.
  14. "Moschus" in The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature.
  15. Thomas Frognall Dibdin, An Introduction to the Knowledge of Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek and Latin Classics (London: Printed for W. Dwyer, 1804), 55.

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