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Dithyramb

Attic relief (4th century BCE) depicting an aulos player and his family standing before Dionysos and a female consort, with theatrical masks displayed above

The dithyramb (/ˈdɪθɪræm/;[1] Ancient Greek: διθύραμβος, dithyrambos) was an ancient Greek hymn sung and danced in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility; the term was also used as an epithet of the god.[2] Plato, in The Laws, while discussing various kinds of music mentions "the birth of Dionysos, called, I think, the dithyramb."[3] Plato also remarks in the Republic that dithyrambs are the clearest example of poetry in which the poet is the only speaker.[4]

However, in The Apology Socrates went to the dithyrambic poets[5] with some of their own most elaborate passages, asking their meaning, but got a response of, "Will you believe me?" which "showed me in an instant that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them."[6]

Plutarch contrasted the dithyramb's wild and ecstatic character with the paean.[7] According to Aristotle, the dithyramb was the origin of Athenian tragedy.[8] A wildly enthusiastic speech or piece of writing is still occasionally described as dithyrambic.[9]

  1. ^ Wells, John C. (2000) [1990]. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (new ed.). Harlow, England: Longman. p. 229. ISBN 978-0-582-36467-7.
  2. ^ Dithurambos, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus. Dithyrambos seems to have arisen out of the hymn: just as paean was both a hymn to and a title of Apollo, Dithyrambos was an epithet of Dionysos as well as a song in his honour; see Harrison (1922, 436).
  3. ^ Plato, Laws, iii.700 B.
  4. ^ Plato. Republic.
  5. ^ John Curtis Franklin (27 June 2013). "'Songbenders of Circular Choruses': Dithyramb and the 'Demise of Music'". In Kowalzig, Barbara; Wilson, Peter (eds.). Dithyramb in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 232. ISBN 9780199574681. Retrieved 21 March 2025. In the Apology (21e–22c), Socrates relates how he went in turn 'to the tragedians, the dithyrambic poets, and all the others' to test their sophia [...].
  6. ^ Plato. The Republic | Edited by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler.
  7. ^ Plutarch, On the Ei at Delphi. Plutarch himself was a priest of Dionysos at Delphi.
  8. ^ Aristotle, Poetics (1449a10–15): "Anyway, arising from an improvisatory beginning (both tragedy and comedy—tragedy from the leaders of the dithyramb, and comedy from the leaders of the phallic processions which even now continue as a custom in many of our cities), [tragedy] grew little by little, as [the poets] developed whatever [new part] of it had appeared; and, passing through many changes, tragedy came to a halt, since it had attained its own nature"; see Janko (1987, 6).
  9. ^ Definition of dithyrambic. TheFreeDictionary.com.
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