Literature and is the history dot come. Oh, Hello and welcome to literature and history.

Episode 25, lyrical ballistics.

And welcome back to ancient Greece. We're going to be here for a while. Today

we're going to talk about a genre called Greek lyric poetry. Greek lyric poetry is most often Greek Lyricricic Poetry.

Greek Lyric Poetry is most often associated with the years from 750 to 500 B.C.

A period which historians call Greece's archaic age.

Today, the most famous Greek lyric poet is probably Sappho,

a native of the island of Lesbos who lived from the late 600s to the early 500s, maybe 630 to 570.

The runner-up is probably Pindar, who lived from 518 to about 443 BC, about a century after

Sappho.

Let's not get too academic right away though that really wouldn't do with Greek

lyric poetry. Let's bracket the names and dates for a while because we're going to go to a party. It's a sunny evening in the year 582 b.C. we're standing on the

582 b.C. We're standing on top of a stone wall in a place called Biosha.

To the east and west of us rises green hill country

and to the north a plain that ends in more pale green hills with the dark blue sheen of a fresh water lake between them.

The hills bloom with perennial grasses, plain trees, oaks, and an occasional poplar.

Orchards and vineyards, quilt the lowlands, and on rocky ridges and peaks in the distance you can see the wind-bent

shapes of cypress trees curved into sickles and cones by the press of the inland breeze.

Close by where we're standing, the oak trees touch the ends of their boughs to the earth, and beneath them small creatures forage for acorns,

pulling off the caps and grinding through their shells to get to the precious pastel meal inside.

Where there are no oaks, there are bushes, and the shrub lands

near the walls are filled with woodpeckers, quail and pheasant. As far as the eye can see, everywhere the grass has come up, bursts of yellow

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