Who is Theognis

Theognis of Megara (Greek: Θέογνις ὁ Μεγαρεύς, Théognis ho Megareús) was a Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC. The work attributed to him consists of gnomic poetry quite typical of the time, featuring ethical maxims and practical advice about life. He was the first Greek poet known to express concern over the eventual fate and survival of his own work and, along with Homer, Hesiod and the authors of the Homeric Hymns, he is among the earliest poets whose work has been preserved in a continuous manuscript tradition (the work of other archaic poets is preserved as scattered fragments). In fact more than half of the extant elegiac poetry of Greece before the Alexandrian period is included in the approximately 1,400 lines of verse attributed to him...
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Theognis Poems

  • Fragments - Lines 0001 - 0004
    O lord, son of Leto, child of Zeus, you I shall never
    Forget, either beginning or coming to an end,
    But always, first and last and in the middle,
    I shall sing of you. And you, hear me and grant good things....
  • Fragments - Lines 0237 - 0254
    To you I have given wings, on which you may fly aloft
    Above the boundless sea and all the earth
    With ease. At feasts and banquets you will be present
    On all occasions, lying in the mouths of many, ...
  • Fragments - Lines 0425 - 0428
    Not to be born is the best of all things for those who live on earth,
    And not to gaze on the radiance of the keen-burning sun.
    Once born, however, it is best to pass with all possible speed through Hades' gates
    And to lie beneath a great heap of earth....
  • Fragments - Lines 1341 - 1350
    Alas, I am in love with a soft-skinned boy, who to all my friends
    Reveals that this is true, though he does so against my will.
    I shall endure without concealment the many outrages done in my despite,
    For not ill-favored is the boy whose conquest I am shown to be. ...
  • Fragments - Lines 0183 - 0192
    Among rams and asses and horses, Kyrnos, we look for those
    Of noble breeding, and a man wants them to mate
    From worthy stock. Yet a noble man does not mind marrying
    A base woman of base birth if she brings him money in abundance, ...
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Top 10 most used topics by Theognis

Son 5 Noble 4 Good 4 Sea 4 Never 4 Love 3 Wealth 3 Child 3 I Love You 3 Pleasure 3


Theognis Quotes

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Comments about Theognis

Nonchalantly_: so many books to write. why lawrence durrell is closer to theognis than nietzsche; why rousseau, as filtered through paul de man, can help us to read f scott fitzgerald
Wikipediachain: good > euthyphro > sophist (dialogue) > analogy of the sun > seventh letter > plato's political philosophy > poitier meets plato > gorgias (dialogue) > cronus > greek chorus > sophocles > theognis of megara > apollonia, cyrenaica > pandosia (lucania) > peloponnesian league > ordu
Simonjduffy: there's nothing gets a good man down like poverty cyrnus—not hoary age, not fever chill. throw yourself, cyrnus, to the monsters of the deep to escape it or leap down the towering cliffs. a man overcome by poverty is powerless in speech and action and his tongue is tied. theognis
Adhdadmiral: the line describes theognis, a famous aristocrat thrown out of the city when it had a revolution and established a democracy. he wrote anti democracy poems and praying to zeus to drink the revolutionaries blood. patron saint to all right wing exiles.
Patrick_wyman: "many bad men, for sure, are rich, and many good men poor; yet will we not change our virtue for these men's wealth, seeing that virtue endureth but possessions belong now to this man and now to that." - theognis of megara, 6th/5th century bc
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Poem of the day

Edgar Albert Guest Poem
The Killing Place
 by Edgar Albert Guest

We're hiking along at a two-forty pace
We 're making life seem like a man-killing race,
With our nerves all on edge and our jaws firmly set
We go rushing along; with our brows lined with sweat
And our cheeks pale and drawn every minute we dash,
And the goal that we 're after is merely more cash.

We 're out for the money, the greenbacks and gold,
...

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