Ancient Greek poetry, silence

Hi Dr Z

You might want to try "Poems of Hesiod" (I think that's what it's called). Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet that wrote about the origins of the gods and Greek values and culture (simillar to say Psalms from the bible). I know he wrote about some virtues, but can't recall if silence was mentioned anywhere.

Nothing obvious springs to mind. To the Greek poets, being silent was rarely an admirable quality but rather something contrary; recall that poetry in antiquity was an oral tradition, so singing about the virtues of being quiet is a bit like... Any number of cliched metaphors about dancing that I refuse to use. You may have better luck mining the philosophical tradition in Greek, as the Pythagoreans, for example, held silence to be a virtue.

A quick rummage through the brain-box only produced the following line from Sophocles:

γύναι, γυναιξὶ κόσμον ἡ σιγὴ φέρει. (Ajax, 293)

It literally means "Silence brings good order to women", and I believe it was once translated as "The best thing a woman can do is be quiet".* Somehow I don't think that's quite what you had in mind...

* - The opinions expressed herein are those of an ancient Greek tragedian and do not reflect the views of the poster...

Go to your local public or university/college library. Ask the reference desk for poetry indices by subject (there are several).

DrZoidberg said:

Hello everybody

I'm trying to find an ancient Greek poem on the topic of silence. Preferably on the value of being silent. Doesn't have to be ancient Greek. In a squeeze it can be from any ancient pagan culture. But it needs to be about silence or the value of silence. The fact that it is genuinely old has value in this case. Otherwise I'd just written one myself.

It's for a bit in a novel involving Harpocrates (that's the ancient one, not the modern Thelemaic one).

I'd much appreciate any help.

Click to expand...

My go-to for this sort of thing is the search engine at Perseus: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/