Jordi Alonso
Jordi Alonso holds degrees in English literature from Kenyon College (AB ’14) Stony Brook University (MFA ’16) and the University of Missouri (PhD ’21). He is currently a Classical Studies MA student at Columbia University. Honeyvoiced, his first book, was published by XOXOX Press in 2014 and his chapbook, The Lovers’ Phrasebook, was published by Red Flag Poetry Press in 2017. His work appears in Kenyon Review Online, Roanoke Review, Levure Littéraire, and other journals. Follow him on Twitter @nymphscholar or get to know his work at jordialonsopoet.com
Poet's Note on the Delphic Sonnets
The material that inspired the book-length manuscript of poems, some of whichyou’re about to read, is a list of sayings that barely occupies three heavily footnotedpages in the 1999 critical text of the Anthology by Johannes Stobaeus edited by KurtWachsmuth and Otto Hense for the German publisher Weidmann. Any readerconcerned for a writer’s well-being may well ask, “why were you reading critical editionsof obscure Late-Antique authors for fun?” and I’ll answer in an espresso-fueled frenzy,“well, Delphi is amazing.” The Oracle of Apollo at his temple in Delphi, known as the “Pythia” was, and is,famous for answering questions asked of her in lines of dactylic hexameter, the samemeter in which many Greek poems, such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, were written.You’d be forgiven for thinking I’ve spent too much time with her and that’s why I ambeing cryptic about my reasons for reading Stobaeus. Let me explain. JohannesStobaeus was a writer and anthologist who flourished in the fifth century of our era. Hecollected a list of 147 short sayings, from which each of these poems you’re about toread take their titles, under the heading:
Σοσιάδου τῶν ἑπτὰ σοφῶν ὑποθῆκαιThe maxims of the Seven Sages according to Sosiades.
Some of these maxims which Stobaeus attributed to the “Seven Wise Men” ofClassical Greece, appear in other, older, surviving Greek literature. Like many thingssurrounding classical antiquity, different sources tell us different things about the samematerial. It is in texts like Plato’s dialogues Charmides (164d), Protagoras (343b),Phaedrus (229e), Philebus (48c), Laws (II.923a), Alcibiades I (124a, 129a, 132c) thatthe maxims are said to have been physically written on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.A verse inscription in dactyllic hexameter found in Asia Minor together with afragmented list of maxims, tells us that these sayings were indeed found in Delphi.
ἀνδρῶν τοι σοφὰ ταῦτα παλαιοτέρων ἀνάκει[τα]ιῥήματα ἀριγνώτων Πυθοὶ ἐν ἠγαθέαι·ἔνθεν ταῦτ[α] Κλέαρχος ἐπιφραδέως ἀναγράψαςεἵσατο τηλαυγῆ Κινέου ἐν τεμένει.IK 65 382–4
These maxims of the ancients can be foundinside the temple of the Pythian god;Klearchos copied them there carefullyand put them here, in Kineas’ bright shrine.
The Temple of Apollo and the Pythia, its main priestess, were active until theRoman emperor Theodosius I ordered that the temple cease all operations in 390 CE inorder to promote Christianity.
Johannes Stobaeus presents the maxims with no context, and they all follow one after the other. In my telling of things, each one of the maxims is part of a response inverse by the Pythia, historically a young girl from the village of Delphi who was at timescalled the most powerful woman in Greece. Fantastically well-educated, she wasconsulted by city governments, by foreign rulers, and by common Greeks, and was apoet in her own right, responding to questions in spontaneously-produced lines ofpoetry that she could not have prepared ahead of time. In the small village of Pytho,later known as Delphi and considered to be the center of the ancient world, herresponses to all sorts of questions were delivered for nine days every year, influencingkings, rulers, and the course of ancient history from the eighth century BCE to the fourthcentury CE. The Oracle was active and prolific for over a millennium before its closure.
Hear her speak again in these poems.
