45-471: The swan song ( Ancient Greek : κύκνειον ᾆσμα ; Latin : carmen cygni ) is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement . The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song just before their death while they have been silent (or alternatively not so musical) for most of their lifetime. The belief, whose basis has been long debated, had become proverbial in ancient Greece by
90-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in
135-437: A consequence of an additional tracheal loop within its sternum. This was proposed by naturalist Peter Pallas as the basis for the legend. Both mute and whooper swans appear to be represented in ancient Greek and Egyptian art. The whooper swan's nearest relatives, the trumpeter and tundra swans , share its musical tracheal loop. Zoologist D.G. Elliot reported in 1898 that a tundra swan he had shot and wounded in flight began
180-477: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and
225-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in
270-522: A long glide down whilst issuing a series of "plaintive and musical" notes that "sounded at times like the soft running of the notes of an octave". The notion that swans sing a final song before dying continued to influence Western culture into the early modern era. For instance, Chaucer 's Parlement of Foules contains a reference to "the Ialous swan, ayens his deth that singeth [the jealous swan, that sings at his death]". Leonardo da Vinci also mentioned
315-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment
360-608: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek
405-548: A singer were sublimated to those of songbirds . Aesop 's fable of " The Swan and the Goose " incorporates the swan song legend as saving its life when it was caught by mistake instead of the goose but was recognized by its song. There is a subsequent reference in Aeschylus ' Agamemnon from 458 BCE. In that play, Clytemnestra compares the dead Cassandra to a swan who has "sung her last lament". In Plato 's Phaedo ,
450-630: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c. 300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as
495-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and
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#1732783230613540-570: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of
585-466: Is a poetic evocation of the "wild swan's death-hymn"; and Samuel Taylor Coleridge , who quipped: "Swans sing before they die— 't were no bad thing / Should certain persons die before they sing." The phrase "swan song" has also taken on a metaphorical sense, referring to the final work of a creative artist, especially when produced shortly before death, or more generally to any final performance or accomplishment. For example, Schwanengesang ( Swan Song )
630-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected
675-666: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to
720-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in
765-718: Is the title of a posthumously published collection of songs by Franz Schubert , written at the end of his life. It is the title usually given to Heinrich Schuetz ' Opus 13 from 1671, the year before he died. The term is often applied in a similar way to the works of modern musicians, such as David Bowie 's Blackstar , Johnny Cash 's rendition of Hurt , J Dilla's Donuts , Queen 's Innuendo and Nirvana 's rendition of Where Did You Sleep Last Night . A dramatic or notable achievement by an athlete just prior to their retirement, such as baseball player Derek Jeter 's walk-off hit in his final game at Yankee Stadium , might also be referred to as their "swan song". An example, in
810-759: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect
855-610: The ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c. 1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c. 1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c. 800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c. 500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been
900-420: The film industry , is represented by " The Last Movie Star ", Rolling Stone referred to the film as Burt Reynolds's "swan song". The film was one of Reynolds's last film projects, and he died several months after the film's release. Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and
945-502: The mute swan ( Cygnus olor ), although not actually mute, is known neither for musicality nor to vocalize as it dies. This has led some to criticize swan song beliefs since antiquity, one of the earliest being Pliny the Elder : in CE 77, Natural History (book 10, chapter xxxii: olorum morte narratur flebilis cantus, falso, ut arbitror, aliquot experimentis ), states: "observation shows that
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#1732783230613990-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)
1035-399: The 3rd century BC and was reiterated many times in later Western poetry and art. Swans learn a variety of sounds throughout their lifetime. Their sounds are more distinguishable during courting rituals and not correlated with death. In Greek mythology , the swan was a bird consecrated to Apollo , and it was therefore considered a symbol of harmony and beauty and its limited capabilities as
1080-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):
1125-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from
1170-674: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs, Daniel Giraud Elliot Daniel Giraud Elliot (March 7, 1835 – December 22, 1915) was an American zoologist and the founder of the American Ornithologist Union. He
1215-560: The ambitious and headstrong son of Helios and Clymene . The name Cycnus is the Latinised form of the Greek, which means "swan". Hyginus proposes in his Fabulae that the mournful Cycnus, who is transformed into a swan by the gods, joins the dirge of the amber-crying poplars, the Heliades , the half-sisters of the dead Phaethon, who also experienced a metamorphosis at the death of the reckless Phaethon. The most familiar European swan,
1260-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has
1305-415: The approach of death". By the third century BC the belief had become a proverb. Ovid mentions the legend in "The Story of Picus and Canens": In tears she poured out words with a faint voice, lamenting her sad woe, as when the swan about to die sings a funereal dirge. It is also possible that the swan song has some connection to the lament of Cycnus of Liguria at the death of his lover, Phaethon ,
1350-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in
1395-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West
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1440-407: The character of Socrates says that, although swans sing in early life, they do not do so as beautifully as before they die. He adds that there is a popular belief that the swans' song is sorrowful, but Socrates prefers to think that they sing for joy, having "foreknowledge of the blessings in the other world". Aristotle noted in his History of Animals that swans "are musical, and sing chiefly at
1485-615: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of
1530-561: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from
1575-476: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to
1620-935: The illustrations. The books included A Monograph of the Phasianidae (Family of the Pheasants) (1870–72), A Monograph of the Paradiseidae or Birds of Paradise (1873), A Monograph of the Felidae or Family of Cats (1878) and Review of the Primates (1913). In 1890, he was President of the American Ornithologists' Union. Elliot became the first curator of zoology at the Field Museum in Chicago, and in 1896, accompanied by Carl Akeley , led
1665-517: The legend in his notebooks: "The swan is white without spot, and it sings sweetly as it dies, that song ending its life." In Shakespeare 's The Merchant of Venice , Portia exclaims "Let music sound while he doth make his choice; / Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, / Fading in music." Similarly, in Othello , the dying Emilia exclaims, "I will play the swan, / And die in music." A madrigal by Orlando Gibbons , " The Silver Swan ", states
1710-438: The legend thus: The silver Swan, who living had no Note, when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat. Leaning her breast against the reedy shore, thus sang her first and last, and sang no more: "Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes! "More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise." Other poets who have taken inspiration from the legend include Alfred, Lord Tennyson , whose poem "The Dying Swan"
1755-669: The museum's expedition to Somaliland, the first African zoological collecting expedition to be mounted by a North American museum. In 1899, Elliot was invited to join the elite Harriman Alaska Expedition to study and document wildlife along the Alaskan coast. Elliot was one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City , of the American Ornithologists' Union and of
1800-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which
1845-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c. 1450 BC ) are in
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1890-413: The story that the dying swan sings is false." Peterson et al. note that Cygnus olor is "not mute but lacks bugling call, merely honking, grunting, and hissing on occasion." However, the whooper swan ( Cygnus cygnus ), a winter visitor to parts of the eastern Mediterranean, possesses a 'bugling' call, and has been noted for issuing a drawn-out series of notes as its lungs collapse upon expiry, both being
1935-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies
1980-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,
2025-534: Was born in New York City on March 7, 1835, to George and Rebecca Elliot. In 1858, he married Ann Eliza Henderson. From 1869 to 1879, he was in London and established strong links to British ornithologists and naturalists. Elliot used his wealth to publish a series of sumptuous color-plate books on birds and other animals. Elliot wrote the text himself and commissioned artists such as Joseph Wolf and Joseph Smit , both of whom had worked for John Gould , to provide
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