Moschus () was an ancient Greek bucolic poet and student of the Alexandrian grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace. He was born at Syracuse, Magna Graecia, and flourished about 150 BC. Aside from his poetry, he was known for his grammatical work, nothing of which survives.
Works
few surviving works consist of an
epyllion, the
Europa, on the myth of Europa, three bucolic fragments and a whole short bucolic poem
Runaway Love, and an epigram in
elegiac couplets. His surviving bucolic material (composed in the traditional dactylic hexameters and
Doric Greek) is short on pastoral themes and is largely erotic and mythological; although this impression may be distorted by the paucity of evidence, it is also seen in the surviving bucolic of the generations after Moschus, including the work of Bion of Smyrna. Moschus' poetry is typically edited along with other bucolic poets, as in the commonly used Oxford text by A. S. F. Gow (1952), but the
Europa has often received separate scholarly editions, as by Winfried Bühler (Wiesbaden 1960) and Malcolm Campbell (Hildesheim 1991). The epigram is also normally published with the edition by Maximos Planoudes of the
Greek Anthology.
Influence
The
Europa, along with
Callimachus'
Hecale and such Latin examples as Catullus 64, is a major example of the Hellenistic phenomenon of the
epyllion. Although it is hard to tell because of the fragmentary nature of the evidence, Moschus' influence on Greek bucolic poetry is likely to have been significant; the influence of
Runaway Love is felt in Bion and other later bucolic poets. In later European literature his work was imitated or translated by such authors as
Torquato Tasso and
Ben Jonson.
Apocrypha
Two other poems, attributed to him at one time or another but no longer thought to be his, are also commonly edited with his work. The best known is the
Epitaph on Bion (i.e. Bion of Smyrna), which had a long history of influence on the pastoral lament for a poet (compare
John Milton's
Lycidas). The other is a miniature epic on Megara (the wife of
Heracles), consisting of an epic dialogue between Heracles' mother and his wife on his absence.
Sources
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For a recent overview of Moschus see A. Porro in Eikasmos 10 (1999) 125–25.
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There are English translations by J. Banks in Bohn's Classical Library (1853), and by Andrew Lang (1889), together with Bion of Smyrna and Theocritus.
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See also Franz Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit. i. 231 (1891).
External links
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Poems by Moschus English translations
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Works of Moschus at Theoi Project translated by J.M. Edmonds, 1912
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Anacreon, Bion, and Moschus, etc. translated by Thomas Stanley (1651)
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Europa. Perseus Digital Library Greek
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Theocritus, Bion et Moschus graece et latine. Accedunt virorum doctorum animadversiones scholia, indices, L. F. Heindorfius (ed.), Londini, sumtibus Whittaker, Treacher, et Arnot, 1829, vol. 2 pp. 35-77.
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Poetae bucolici et didactici. Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, Nicander, Oppianus, Marcellus de piscibus, poeta de herbis, C. Fr. Ameis, F. S. Lehrs (ed.), Parisiis, editore Ambrosio Firmin Didot, 1862, pp. 77-86.
