Susarion
Susarion (
About 580 BC, he transplanted the Megarian comedy (if the rude extempore jests and buffoonery deserve the name) into the Attic deme of Icaria, the cradle also of Greek tragedy and the oldest seat of the worship of Dionysus. According to the Parian Chronicle, there appears to have been a competition on this occasion, in which the prize was a basket of figs and an amphora of wine.
Susarion's improvements in his native farces did not include a separate actor or a regular plot, but probably consisted in substituting metrical compositions for the old extempore effusions of the chorus. These were intended for recitation, and not committed to writing. But such performances did not suit the taste of the Athenians, and nothing more is heard of them until eighty years after the time of Susarion.
Fragment
The following quote, recorded partly by
Listen people. These are the words of Susarion, son of Philinus, from Tripodeske in Megara. Women are a bane: but nevertheless it is not possible to live in a household without bane. For to marry or not to marry, either is baneful.[3]
Notes
- ISBN 0-521-21042-9, cf. Chapter 12, Comedy, p.366-367
References
- ^ Edmonds, J.M. (John Maxwell), The Fragments of Attic Comedy, Leiden : E. J. Brill, 1957; v.I (Old Comedy) 1957; v.II (Middle Comedy) 1959.
- ^ Douglas E. Gerber, Greek iambic Poetry, Loeb Classical Library (1999), page 9
- ^ Susarion fragment, translated and annotated by Douglas E. Gerber, Greek iambic Poetry, Loeb Classical Library (1999), page 511
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Susarion". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 162. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the