View source for Moschus

{{Short description|2nd century BC Greek poet}}
{{for multi|the Phoenician writer|Mochus|the 6th century Syrian writer|John Moschus|the genus|Musk deer}}
[[File:Hvd.hx6e89-seq 139 (crop1) - Copy (cropped).jpg|thumb|18th century likeness of Moschus]]
'''Moschus''' ({{langx|el|Μόσχος}}) was an [[ancient Greek]] [[bucolic]] [[poet]] and student of the Alexandrian grammarian [[Aristarchus of Samothrace]]. He was born at [[Syracuse, Italy|Syracuse]], [[Magna Graecia]], and flourished about 150 BC. Aside from his poetry, he was known for his [[Grammarian (Greco-Roman)|grammatical]] work, nothing of which survives. 

== Works ==
[[File:Europa poem by Moschus, Greek, 15th century.png|thumb|Page from a 15th-century Byzantine manuscript of ''Europa'']]His few surviving works consist of an [[epyllion]], the ''Europa'', on the myth of [[Europa (mythology)|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 hexameter]]s and [[Doric Greek|Doric dialect]]) 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 (poem)|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|Milton]]'s ''Lycidas''). The other is a miniature epic on [[Megara (mythology)|Megara]] (the wife of [[Heracles]]), consisting of an epic dialogue between Heracles' mother and his wife on his absence.

==Sources==
*{{EB1911|wstitle=Moschus}}
*For a recent overview of Moschus see A. Porro in ''Eikasmos'' 10 (1999) 125–25.
*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]].
*See also [[Franz Susemihl]], ''Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit.'' i. 231 (1891).

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* {{wikisource author-inline}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=1576}}
* {{Internet Archive author}}
* [http://www.blackcatpoems.com/m/moschus.html Poems by Moschus] English translations
* [http://www.theoi.com/Text/Moschus.html Works of Moschus at Theoi Project] translated by J.M. Edmonds, 1912
* [https://archive.org/stream/anacreonbionmosc00bionuoft#page/n5/mode/2up ''Anacreon, Bion, and Moschus, etc.''] translated by [[Thomas Stanley (author)|Thomas Stanley]] (1651)
* [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0644 Europa. Perseus Digital Library] Greek
*''Theocritus, Bion et Moschus graece et latine. Accedunt virorum doctorum animadversiones scholia, indices'', L. F. Heindorfius (ed.), Londini, sumtibus Whittaker, Treacher, et Arnot, 1829, [https://archive.org/stream/theocritusbionet02theo#page/n153/mode/2up vol. 2 pp. 35-77].
*''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, [https://archive.org/details/poetaebucoliciet00amei pp. 77-86].

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Poets of Magna Graecia]]
[[Category:2nd-century BC Greek poets]]
[[Category:Ancient Syracusans]]
[[Category:Ancient Greek bucolic poets]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]
[[Category:Year of death unknown]]
[[Category:Epigrammatists of the Greek Anthology]]