Ialemus
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

( grc, Ἰάλεμος, meaning "funeral song"), is a song of lamentation in ancient Greece, a demigod, minor deity personifying this song in Greek mythology, and an epithet of Linus of Thrace, Linus. He was the son of Apollo and Calliope, and the inventor of the song ''Ialemus'', which was a kind of dirge, or at any rate a song of a very serious and mournful character, and is only mentioned as sung on most melancholy occasions. (Aeschyl. Suppl. 106 ; Eurip, Herc. Fur. 109, SuppL 283.) In later times, this kind of poetry lost its popularity, and was ridiculed by the comic poets. Ialemus then became synonymous with cold and frosty poetry, and was used in this sense proverbially. (Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 1375, ad Apollon. Rhod. iv. 1304 ; Zenob. iv. 39.) In his third Threnody, Threnos, Pindar associates him with Hymen (god), Hymen, Linus of Thrace, Linos and Orpheus, and makes him the son of Apollo and Calliope. The then appears as a poetic genre in itself, and is quoted several times by the tragic ones in scenes of lamentations. Pamphos associates him with Linos, son of Urania. During the Classical antiquity, Classical period, the genre gradually lost its popularity. The name then becomes proverbial for what inspires pity () / () meaning cold, or in the expression "more naked than Ialémos" ( Ἰαλέμου / Gymnóteros).


References

{{SmithDGRBM Children of Apollo Ancient Greek laments Ancient Greek poetry Music in Greek mythology