Apollo
- Iliad 1.472-3
- And all long the young Acheans sought to please the god
with song and dance, singing a beatiful paean,
celebrating far-working Apollo in song; and he heard it
and was delighted in his heart.
(H. G. Evelyn-White, Hesiod and the Homeric
Hymns, Cambridge, Mass.-London: Harvard University Press and
Heinemann, 1959: 333)
- Iliad 1. 601-4
- Thus they feasted all day until sunset, und none of them
lacked appetite for the feast that they shared, or for
the music of the splendid phorminx that Apollo
played, or for that of the Muses, who sang, answering one
another with their beautiful voices.
(Barker 1984: 24)
- Homeric Hymn to Apollo 129-132
- Forthwith Phoebus Apollo spoke out among the deathless
goddesses: "The lyre (kitharis) and the
curved bow shall ever be dear to me, and I will declare
to men the unfailing will of Zeus."
(H. G. Evelyn-White, Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns, Cambridge,
Mass.-London: Harvard University Press and Heinemann, 1959: 333)
- Homeric Hymn to Apollo 140-50
- And you, far-shooting lord Apollo of the silver bow,
walked sometimes on craggy Cynthus, and sometimes
wandered among the islands and their people. You have
many islands and wooded groves: all the peaks and high
cliffs of the lofty mountains, and the rivers that flow
to the sea, are dear to you. But you delight your heart,
Phoebus, in Delos most of all, where the Ionians with
their trailing robes come together, with their children
and modest wives. They turn their minds to boxing and
dancing and song, and delight in them, whenever they set
up their festival.
(Barker 1984: 39)
- Homeric Hymn to Apollo 182-206
- Leto's glorious son goes to rocky Pytho, playing on his
hollow phorminx, clothed in divine and scented
garments. His phorminx, touched by the golden plectrum,
gives a sweet ringing sound. Thence he goes, swift as a
thought, from earth to Olympus, to the house of Zeus into
the gathering of the other gods.
At once the thougths of the immortals turn to
song and the music of the kithara. The Muses,
answering all together with a beautiful voice, hymn the
undying gifts of the gods and the sufferings of men, all
that they receive from the immortal gods in their silly
and helpless lives, where they can find no remedy for
death, and no bulwark against old age. And the Graces with
their lovely tresses, and the happy Seasons, and Harmonia
and Hebe, and Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, dance with
their hands holding one another's wrists. Singing with
them is one not ugly or small, but tall to look upon and
enviable form, Artemis, pourer of arrows, sister of
Apollo. Among them frolic Ares and the sharp-eyed killer
of Argus, while Phoebus Apollo plays on the kithara,
stepping with fine high steps. A radiance shines about
him, the sparklings of his feet and of his well-spun
tunic. And golden-haired Leto and Zeus the counsellor
delight their great hearts in watching their dear son at
play among the immortal gods.
(Barker 1984: 40-41)
- Homeric Hymn to Apollo 513-23
- When they had taken their fill of food and drink, they
set out, led by the lord Apollo, son of Zeus, holding a phorminx
in his hands and playing (kitharizon) sweetly,
stepping with fine high steps. The Cretans followed him
to Pytho with stamping feet, singing 'Ie paian'
like the Cretan paean-singers in whose breasts the Muse
has placed honey-voiced song. With unwearied feet they
came to the crest, and soon reached Parnassus and the
lovely place where they were to live, honoured by many
people. Apollo led them there, and showed them his sacred
shrine and rich temple.
(Barker 1984: 41)
- Strabo, Geography
IX.3.10
- [At the Pythian games] the kitharodoi they added
auletes and kitharists, who performed with no singing,
and played a melody called the Pythikos nomos. It
has five parts, ankrousis, ampeira, katakeleusmos,
iamboi and daktyloi, syringes [...].
The intention is to celebrate, through his melody, the
contest of Apollo against the serpent, representing (delon)
the prelude with the ankrousis, the first
onslaught of the contest with the ampeira, the
contest itself with the katakeleusmos, the
triumphal song (epipaionismos) over the victory
with the iamboi and daktyloi, using rhythms
of which the dactylic is suitable for hymns, the iambic
for insults, as in the word iambizein ['insult' or
'satirise'], while with the syringes the players
imitated the death of the monster as it expired with its
final whistlings (syrigmous).
(Barker 1984: 51-52)
- Pollux, Onomastikon
IV.84
- The auletic Pythikos nomos has five parts, peira,
katakeleusmos, iambikon, spondeion
and katachoreusis. The nomos is a
representation [deloma, lit. 'showing', 'display']
of the battle of Apollo against the serpent. In the peira
['test', 'trial'] he surveys the ground to see if it is
suitable for the contest. In the katakeleusmos
['challenge'] he calls up the serpent, and in the iambikon
he fights: the iambikon also includes sounds like
those of the salpinx and gnashings like those of
the serpent as it grinds its teeth after being pierced
with arrows. The spondeion represents (deloi)
the victory of the god; and in the katachoreusis
['dance of triumph'] the god performs a dance of victory.
(Barker 1984: 51)
- Other literary sources:
-
- Hesiod, Theogony 94-5; Scutum Herculis 203;
- Sappho, fr. 208 PLF Lobel-Page;
- Alcman, fr. 307c PLF Lobel-Page;
- Pindar, Pythian I. 1-3; Nemean 43-45;
- Euripides, Alcestis 570;
- Aristophanes, Aves 219; Ranae 23; Thesmophoriazusae
969;
- Lucian, Dialogi deorum 7. 4;
- Pausanias V 14, 8;
- Himerius, Orationes 14. 10; 13. 7;
- Nonnus, Dionysiaca 5. 102.
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