- Erinna
Erinna (Greek: polytonic|Ἤριννα) was a Greek poet, a contemporary and friend of
Sappho , a native ofRhodes or the adjacent island of Telos or even possibly Tenos, who flourished about 600 BC (according toEusebius , she was well known in 352 BC [Eusebius of Caesarea, "Chronicle" [http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_chronicle_03_part2.htm p. 203] .] ). Her best-known poem was the "Distaff" (Greek polytonic|Ἠλᾰκάτη), written in a mixture of Aeolic andDoric Greek and consisting of 300hexameter lines, of which only four were extant until 1928. Three epigrams ascribed to her in the Palatine anthology probably belong to a later date, though some debate on the first epigram exists.In 1928, a papyrus (PSI 1090) was found that contained 54 fragmentary lines by the poet in six pieces [Marilyn Arthur, "The Tortoise and the Mirror: Erinna PSI 1090," "Classical World", 74 (1980)] now located in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. The poem is a
lament (Greek polytonic|θρῆνος) on the death of her friend,Baucis (Greek polytonic|Βαυκίς), a disciple of Sappho, shortly before her wedding.Camillo Neri, in an Italian work assessing the surviving fragments and testimonies to her, reconstructs the poet's original name as "Herinna" (polytonic|Ἥριννα). [ [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2004/2004-07-24.html Luis Guichard, review] of Camillo Neri's "Erinna. Testimonianze e Frammenti. Eikasmos, Studi, 9" in "Bryn Mawr Classical Review" 2004.07.24] She is also sometimes named "Erina."
Notes
References
*1911
External links
* [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104&query=head%3D%236657 A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology (ed. William Smith): Erinna] (compare the same dictionary's [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104;query=id%3D%236656;layout=;loc= entry on an alleged second poet with the same name] )
* [http://www.bartleby.com/246/888.html Poem about Erinna]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
