Arion

Arion (Greek: Ἀρίων; fl. c. 620 BC) was a kitharode in ancient Greece, a Dionysiac poet credited with inventing the dithyramb. The islanders of Lesbos claimed him as their native son, but Arion found a patron in Periander, tyrant of Corinth. Although notable for his musical inventions, Arion is chiefly remembered for the fantastic myth of his kidnapping by pirates and miraculous rescue by dolphins, a folktale motif.

Quotes

• [Insert Greek text]
  • Chiefest of Gods, sea-lord Poseidon of the trident of gold, earth-shaking king of the swellingᶜ brine, the beasts that swim dance all about thee with fins, and lightly bound with nimble flingings of the foot, the snub-nosed coarsing hounds of bristling mane, the dolphin-lovers of the Muse, sea-creatures of Nereus’ goddess-daughters that he had of Amphitrite, the beasts that bore a wanderer on the Sicilian sea to Taenarum’s shore in Pelops’ land, ploughing to the untrodden furrow of Nereus’ field astride their humpèd back, when crafty men had cast me from out the hollow wave-going ship into the sea-purple billows of the ocean.
  • "Hymn to Poseidon", quoted by Aelian, On Animals, xii, 43: "That dolphins have a natural liking for singing and the flute, witness Arion of Methymna by token of the statue at Cape Taenarum and the inscription thereon, which runs ‘By immortal guidance this equipage saved Arion son of Cycleus from the Sicilian main.’ The hymn of thanksgiving to Poseidon which testifies to the dolphins’ love of music was composed by Arion as a meed of gratitude not only to him but to them."
  • J. M. Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, Vol. 3 (1927), p. 478
    • Other translations:
      Hail, Neptune, greatest of the gods!
      Thou ruler of the salt sea floods:
      Thou with the deep and dark-green hair,
      That dost the golden trident bear:
      Thou that with either arm outspread
      Embosomest the earth we tread:
      Thine are the beasts with fins and scales
      That, round thy chariot, as it sails,
      Plunging and tumbling, fast and free,
      All reckless follow o’er the sea.
      Thine are the gentle dolphin throng,
      That love and listen to the song;
      With whom the sister Nereids stray,
      And in their crystal caverns play.
      They bore me well to Pelops’ isle,
      And Sparta’s rocky mountain-pile;
      And thro’ the deep Sicilian sea,
      The briny champain plough’d for me;
      When wicked men had cast me o’er
      Our vessel’s side, into the roar
      Of clashing waters, and a grave.
      Yawn’d for me in the purple wave.
      —Charles Merivale, Collections from the Greek Anthology (1833), p. 10
      Mighty God Poseidon, thee I sing,
      Girder of the Earth, of Ocean king,
        Golden trident brandishing.
      Round thee sport in joyous rout
        Lightly leaping, gleaming, glancing,
        Tossing in their finny dancing
      Bristly mane and flattened snout,
      Dolphins, whom the Muse enthrals—
        Playmates ’neath the briny waters
        Chasing Amphitrite’s daughters
          In the Nereids’ halls.
      These bore me to the coast of Pelops’ isle
        On their curvèd backs uplifted,
      Cleaving the furrows of a pathless plain,
        On a perilous voyage I drifted,
      Cast by treacherous seamen’s guile
        Into the darkling main.
      —E. D. Stone, ed. A Short Memoir of Herbert Kynaston, &c. (1912), p. 13

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