Alcaeus and myth

Victim of his muses and a hero in Greco-Roman and Indo-European myth and history, Alcaeus was an ancient Greek lyric poet who supposedly invented the Alcaic verse. He was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. A prime star of literature throughout the Antiquity, he was born into the aristocratic governing class of Mytilene, the main city of Lesbos. His poetry is said to be very subjective and passionate with a very expressive form of language. Not only in him, but in the Aeolic school in general, poetry was not a mere art, but a warm outpouring of the writer's inmost feelings. This is where mythology seeps into Alcaeus' work.

Myth has often been used to place one’s own experiences, thoughts, and feelings in a larger context, opening them up to realms beyond the individual, making them less purely personal and idiosyncratic. This is what explains the mythological references in Alcaeus's poetry. Alcaeus’s fragmented poems may be classed into four groups: hymns honouring gods and heroes, love poetry, drinking songs, and political poems. They exude the vigour of the poet’s involvement in the social and political life of Mytilene and express a closed world of aristocratic values and conservatism.

In his poem written for his contemporary poet Sapho, themes of love, and rejection make a passionate and prominent appearance. An equal star of Greek canonical literature, Alcaeus goes to utmost lengths to describe the beauty of his contemporary who has been painted by even renaissance painters like Titan. In his tale of unrequited love, he attributes a goddess-like divine status while elucidating her as a chaste, honey-smiled woman. The honey-smiled woman also can be seen as a reference to Sapho's well-known jovial, approachable temperament she put on while carrying out altruistic activities and helping open schools for girls back in her day. All this comes pretty conventional for his times when Greek writers used to put women characters on a pedestal albeit typecasting them as virgin and sweet.

However, it’s only in the poem’s climax when Alcaeus makes a very personal revelation and declares his love for Sapho. The fear of rejection and feelings of insecurity keep him away from telling his feelings to his lover and rather as a very hesitant lover, he just sits in his male angst yearning for her. The poem can also be viewed as a cathartic piece of writing in today's day.

In Eros and Castor and Pollux, Alcaeus describes the 3 gods in a non-intimate fashion, unlike Sapho. Like any lyric poet in Antiquity, he uses poetry to eulogise the gods in this case, Eros, the mischievous god of love, a minion and constant companion of the goddess Aphrodite and Castor and Pollux, the patron gods of horses and of the Roman social order of mounted knights, called equites.

In Greek art, Eros was portrayed either as a beautiful youth (in the earlier days) or as a mischievous boy (in Hellenic times and later). The famous playwright Euripides is the earliest author to describe himself as someone with a bow and a quiver full of unavoidable arrows, two attributes which have ever since been etched in our collective imagination. All in all, Eros occupied a very important position and was a common name in the Greek civilisation while talking and propagating love which occupied a primal role in the Greek mis-en-scene. In his poem too, Alcaeus builds on Eros's sphere of influence in enchanting even the mightiest from Zephyr, the god of the west wind to Iris, goddess of the rainbow and the messenger of the Olympian gods with his arrow. He even goes to the extent of making Eros's status legendary by making his acts of mischief like shooting a bow a blessing and something every lover should be grateful for.

In Castor and Pollux, Alcaeus talks about the sons of Zeus and Leda, Castor, and his twin brother Pollux, 2 almost inseparable gods who helped shipwrecked sailors and brought favourable winds for those who made sacrifices to them. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. The twins were also Argonauts. When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini. Alcaeus in his poem, insinuates and stirs the zealous adventure streak of the 2 twins by calling them on adventure. The poem not only exudes brotherhood but also the classic voyage narrative in Greek literature. The poet also paints an enigmatic yet visually striking tapestry of the world back then with men going on this metaphorical journey much before the most popular Homer's Odyssey and motivates the gods in pursuit of glory and honour to strive and achieve the goals they were sent on earth to accomplish.

Thus in Alcaeus’s poetry, we can see a judicious and immaculate utilization of an inexhaustible rich lode of cultural knowledge, hopes, fears, and passions, of archetypal figures, situations and most importantly myths that each poetic generation can mine and remake.