Thamyris
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In Greek mythology, Thamyris, son of Philammon, was a Thracian bard who was so vain and proud, that he boasted he could outsing the Muses themselves, according to a passage in Homer (Iliad, book ii, 594-600) that is taken up in Euripides' Rhesus. They struck him with blindness, and took away his beautiful voice. After his death he was further punished in Hades for his hubris. Diodorus Siculus (iii.67) tells that there were three pupils taken by Linus: Heracles, Thamyris and Orpheus, which establishes his legendary nature. When Pliny quickly sketches the origins of music (Natural History vii.207), he credits Thamyris with inventing the Dorian mode and with being the first to play the cithara by itself, without using the voice.
Thamyris was also said to have been a lover of Hyacinthus, and furthermore to have been the first man to have loved another man, Apollodorus noted in the Library (i.3.3).
Thamyris was also the name of a Theban who was killed by Actor.
External link
- Donatella Restani, "Music and myth in ancient Greece": (http://www.muspe.unibo.it/period/MA/index/number2/restani/thamyris.html) literary mentions of Thamyris quoted (in English)