15 Facts About Tithonus poem

Tithonus poem, known as the old age poem or the New Sappho, is a poem by the archaic Greek poet Sappho.

The Tithonus poem is from Book IV of the Alexandrian edition of Sappho's poetry.

The Tithonus poem was first published in 1922, after a fragment of papyrus on which it was partially preserved was discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt.

The Tithonus poem is one of very few substantially complete works by Sappho, and deals with the effects of ageing.

The lines quoted by Athenaeus are part of the Tithonus poem as preserved on the Oxyrhynchus papyrus, but not the Cologne papyrus.

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Part of the Tithonus poem was originally published in 1922 on a fragment of papyrus from Oxyrhynchus.

The metre of this last Tithonus poem has characteristics which do not appear in any known metre used by the Lesbian poets.

Tithonus poem is twelve lines long, and is in a metre called "acephalous Hipponacteans with internal double-choriambic expansion".

Anton Bierl suggests that the Tithonus poem was originally composed as a didactic work, intended to teach young women about beauty and mortality.

Tithonus poem's asked that Zeus make her lover immortal; he granted the request, but as she did not ask for eternal youth for Tithonus, he continued to age for eternity.

The story of Tithonus was popular in archaic Greek poetry, though the reference to him in this poem seems out of place, according to Rawles.

However, Page duBois notes that the use of a mythical exemplum to illustrate the point of a poem, such as the story of Tithonus in this poem, is a characteristic feature of Sappho's poetry – duBois compares it to Sappho's use of the story of Helen in fragment 16.

Metre of the Tithonus poem was already known, before the discovery of the Cologne papyrus, from four quotations of Sappho.

The Cologne version of the Tithonus poem is thus missing what were long believed to be the final four lines of the Tithonus poem.

The sixteen-line version of the Tithonus poem has a much more optimistic ending than the twelve-line version, expressing hope for an afterlife.