\n\tAusonius <\/em>was the the first used “technopaegnia<\/em>” in his work XII, 1 <\/em>to refer to a poem in hexameters in which each verse ends with the monosyllable with which the next begins. It is a Greek word composed of τ\u03adχνη, techne<\/em>, art<\/em>, and πα\u1f31γνιον, paígnion, game,<\/em> thus meaning "art game<\/em>", referring to the special ability of the poet, but it doesn’t had the meaning we ascribe now.<\/p>\n \n\tOn Latin it is called carmina figurata<\/em> and naturally they are numerous by the Roman <\/em>tendency to imitate everything Greek.<\/p>\n \n\tPoem-figure Pattern Poetry are a good names.<\/p>\n \n\tVisual poetry<\/em> and concrete poetry<\/em> are two modern terms to refer to a kind of poetry in which the visual and space work with rhyme and rhythm to the objective representation (objectualization) of abstract ideas.<\/p>\n \n\tSuch poems are somehow put in value in modern times by Guillaume Apollinair<\/em> (1880-1918), and by the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro<\/em> (1893-1948), to the point that there will be many people who consider the creators without knowing who already the Greeks <\/em>as Simias of Rhodes<\/em>, author of the fourth century BC, lived about 300 BC , famous because he was the first of whom we preserved some in our Western tradition, and Theocritus<\/em>, the poet of Idylls<\/em>, wrote them. In our modern pride we should not ignore that in the Arab world poems also are drawn taking advantage of the graphical beauty of the signs that the Arabs used in their writing.<\/p>\n \n\tThe ancient Greek technopaegnia <\/em>or poems-figure are six: of Simmias of Rhodes<\/em> we retain three that have darken wowing since ancient times, which are titled Wings<\/em>, Axe <\/em>and Egg<\/em>. Of Theocritus<\/em> we have the poem called the Syrinx<\/em>. Of Dosiadas, a contemporary of the previous we preserve, "The Doric altar," and of a Besantinus<\/em>, who was identified with the Latin lexicographer<\/em> of II century A.D., Lucius Julius Vestinus<\/em>, contemporary of Hadrian<\/em>, the poem "The Ionic altar.<\/em>" Besantinus<\/em>" would be a corruption of the name" Vestinus<\/em>" through "Bestinus<\/em>". But all these authorships have been questioned at some point; of these authors only Theocritus <\/em>is well known for us.<\/p>\n \n\tNaturally, there were similar poems in Latin <\/em>in Roman <\/em>times. So Levius<\/em>, in the first century, used them in its Pterygium Phoenicis (the Wings of Phoenix)<\/em>, and in the IV century the poet Publilius Porfirius Optacianus<\/em> writes poems entitled also Syrinx<\/em>, the Altar <\/em>and Water Organ<\/em>, proof that he knew the Greeks<\/em>. Venantius Fortunatus<\/em>, in the sixth century and later Rabanus Maurus<\/em>, in time of Charlemagne<\/em>, wrote some poems-figure.<\/p>\n \n\tSince the Renaissance <\/em>they had a great development throughout Europe<\/em>; actually in Spain <\/em>it was lower because its Humanism <\/em>had less knowledge of Greek.<\/p>\n \n\tModern and currently its development is enormous, given the importance that all visual and designs of the things have in our culture, given to know by effective mass media<\/p>\n \n\tGenerally the six Greeks<\/em> have been preserved in manuscripts attached to the end of the work of Theocritus <\/em>since Antiquity <\/em>and in the tenth century they were included by the Byzantine compiler in the Greek Anthology as book number XV. But these are scholars details that do not interest us at the moment.<\/p>\n \n\tOn the origin of these poetic forms it has been thought, perhaps without much foundation, they were poems to be inscribed in the object they describe, because there are certainly many objects with allusive inscriptions. Thus the "Axe<\/em>" would be enrolled in an "axe<\/em>", the "wings<\/em>" on the wings of a statue of Eros<\/em>, etc ..<\/p>\n \n\tWith less ground although its origin should be in magic formulas. Probably its origin is in the mannerism of the educated Hellenistic <\/em>poets interested in their eruditeness about ancient inscriptions when poetry is no longer oral and does not fulfill a social function being sung or recited on certain occasions, to become a purely bookish creation oriented to mere reading.<\/p>\n \n\tIt should be taken into account that that the manuscripts often present us two settings of the lines: the setting that makes up the figure to the terms and the setting of the verses in the order in which they are to be read. In the latter case, not all scholars are agree with that the manuscripts transmit; generally they respected the order of Wings, Syrinx<\/em> and the two Altars<\/em>, but not with the Egg <\/em>or the Axe<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tAnother question to consider is that both the Greek metric as the Latin and its various types of verses are based on the amount or duration of syllables and not in number, so they have an added difficulty to performing the visual forms. The solve it using and mixing different types of lines to adjust its visual form.<\/p>\n \n\tI offer the printing these poems as it appears in the edition of Jean Crispin 1570<\/em>, forming the corresponding figures and its Latin <\/em>version in case of The Axe, The Wings, The Egg, and The Syringx or Pipe:<\/p>\n \n\tTheokritou Syrakoisiou Eidyllia kai epigrammata sozomena. Simmiou Rodiou, Moschou Syrakosiou, Bionos Smyrnaiou = Theocriti, Simmiae, Moschi, & Bionis Eidyllia & Epigrammata quae supersunt, cum Musaei poemario, omnia graecolatina & exposita. Genevae : apud J(ean) Crispinum.1570:<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tSimias: The Axe<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tEpeus <\/em>devoted to the goddess Athena <\/em>the axe with which he built the famous Trojan <\/em>horse<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tNote<\/em>: in the Loeb Classical Library<\/em> edition, The Greek Antohology, vol V<\/em>, translation by W.R. Paton<\/em>. London. 1918 it appears with this form for easy reading. But the reading would form a spiral from the outer verses 1-2 left towards 11-12 interiors, according to proposal by P.E. Legrand.<\/em> The double axe, called on Greek labrys <\/em>λ\u03acβρυς is itself already of Cretan <\/em>culture; then the Greeks called the ax of double edge pelekys <\/em>(π\u03adλεκυς) and the Romans bipennis<\/em>, word which has passed as a historical and archaeological technical term.<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tTHE AXE OF SIMIAS<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tPhocian Epeius, in gratitude for her strong device, gave to the virile goddess Athena the axe with which of old he laid in ruin the high, god-built towers, then when he burnt to ashes with fire-breathing doom the holy city of the Dardanidae and dashed down from their seats the gilded kings, a man who was not reckoned among the chieftains of the Achaeans, but one of low degree who carried water from the pure fountains. But now he has entered on the path of Homer, thanks to thee, holy Pallas of many counsels. Thrice blessed he whom with a gracious mind thou watchest over. This blessedness ever lives and breathes<\/em><\/strong>. ( Loeb Classical Library, The Greek Antohology, vol V, translated by W.R.Paton. London. 1918)<\/p>\n \n\tSimias: the Wings<\/em><\/p>\n \n\t \n\tNote<\/em>: it is supposed that it was engraved on the wings of a statue of Eros<\/em>. The poem presents a young and old Eros<\/em> at the same time. Eros <\/em>is the god of love and sexual attraction, but also he is the cosmological god who emerged from the egg laid by Night <\/em>after the original Chaos <\/em>and brings order to the Cosmos<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tBehold the ruler of the deep-bosomed Earth, the turner upside-down of the Son of Acmon, and have no fear that so little a person should have so plentiful a crop of beard to his chin. For I was born when Necessity bare rule, and all creatures, moved they in Air or in Chaos, were kept though her dismal governance far apart. Swift-flying son of Cypris and war-lord Ares – I am not that at all; for by no force came I into rule, but by gentle-willed persuasion, and yet all alike, Earth, deep Sea, and brazen Heaven, bowed to my behest, and I took to myself their old sceptre and made me a judge among gods.<\/strong><\/em> (The Greek Bucolic Poets. Translated by Edmonds, J M. Loeb Classical Library Volume 28. Cambridge, MA. Harvard Univserity Press. 1912.)<\/p>\n \n\tSimias: the Egg<\/em><\/p>\n \n\t \n\tLo here a new weft of a twittering mother, a Dorian nightingale; receive it with a right good will, for pure was the mother whose shrilly throes did labour for it. The loud-voiced herald of the gods took it up from beneath its dear mother’s wings, and cast it among the tribes of men and bade it increase its number onward more and more – that number keeping the while due order of rhythms – from a one-footed measure even unto a full ten measures: and quickly he made fat from above the swiftly-slanting slope of its vagrant feet, striking, as he went on, a motley strain indeed but a right concordant cry of the Pierians, and making exchange of limbs with the nimble fawns the swift children of the foot-stirring stag. – Now these fawns through immortal desire of their dear dam do rush apace after the beloved teat, all passing with far-hasting feet over the hilltops in the track of that friendly nurse, and with a bleat they go by the mountain pastures of the thousand feeding sheep and the caves of the slender-ankled Nymphs, till all at once some cruel-hearted beast, receiving their echoing cry in the dense fold of his den, leaps speedily forth of the bed of his rocky lair with intent to catch one of the wandering progeny of that dappled mother, and then swiftly following the sound of their cry straightway darteth through the shaggy dell of the snow-clad hills. – Of feet as swift as their urged that renowned god the labour, as he sped the manifold measures of the song. (<\/strong><\/em>The Greek Bucolic Poets. Translated by Edmonds, J M. Loeb Classical Library Volume 28. Cambridge, MA. Harvard Univserity Press. 1912.)<\/p>\n \n\tNote<\/em>: It is a difficult to translate and difficult to read poem, whose reading should be made from the first verse to the last, from the second to the penultimate and so until to the center; but Legrand <\/em>proposes another reading from the center to the periphery. It is made a comparison with an egg of nightingale, which grows with the rhythm that the god Hermes <\/em>set with his foot. The increasing rate is then compared with a fawn running around looking for his mother. It seems that the poet is referring to the fact of poetic creation itself: the poet is a nightingale, frequent identification in antiquity, and therefore he makes a poem as would the bird egg. But there he is who gives a more transcendent and cosmological interpretation, relating it to the poem of the wings of Eros <\/em>and by referring to the cosmic egg<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tTheocritus: The syrinx<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tNote<\/em>: Theocritus <\/em>offers a syrinx or pipe the god Pan<\/em>. With it he will play sweetly to Echo<\/em>, his beloved nymph. Curiously, the poem draws a syrinx or shepherd's flute in which the reeds are decreasing, when the figure we have of it from pictures or reliefs is of all same reeds, which were covered with wax at different distances for different sound.<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tTHE PIPE OF THEOCRITUS<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tThe bed-fellow of nobody and mother of the far-fighter gave birth to the swift director of the nurse of him whose place a stone took, not Cerastas, whom the child of the bull once reared, but him whose heart once was burnt by the edge of a shield lacking a Pi, whole by name, a double animal who felt desire for the Meropian girl born of a voice and like to the wind, who put together for the violet-crowned Muse a shrill wound, the monument of fiery love ; he who quenched the bravery that had the same name as the slayer of his grandfather and freed the Tyrian maiden from it ; he to whom Paris Simichidas offered this beloved possession of the blind-bearers ; rejoicing in thy soul at which, O treader of flocks, tormentor of the Saettian woman, son of a thief, without a father, box-footed, mayst thou sweetly play to the mute girl. Calliope the invisible. <\/strong><\/em>(Loeb Classical Library, The Greek Antohology, vol V, translated by W.R.Paton. London. 1918)<\/p>\n \n\tNotes:<\/em> \n\tIt is a difficult text to read without the notes to clarify many puns in Greek. The scholiasts or ancient commentators devoted good efforts to this task. This poem is full, like following Doric Altar, of guessing or "griphos" that is necessary to be solved in order to understand.<\/p>\n \n\tDosiadas: The Doric Altar<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tThe poem presents itself as inscribed on the altar, which Jason made; Philoctetes <\/em>is bitten by a snake when contemplates and suffers terrible pain until Odysseus <\/em>and Diomedes <\/em>go to look him to conquer Troy<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tDOSIADAS. THE ALTAR<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tThe husband of the woman clothed in male attire, a man who was twice young, made me ; not he who lay on the fire, the son of the Empusa, whose death was due to the Trojan cowherd, offspring of a dog, but the friend of Chryse, when the cook of men struck the brazen-limbed watchman whom the faithless husband of two wives, he who was cast away by his mother, toiled to fashion. And when he had looked on my structure, the slayer of Theocritus, the burner of him of the three nights, called out . . . for it afflicted him with its poison, the belly-creeper that had put off old age. And him … in the sea-girt place, the husband of Pan's mother, the thief with two lives and the son of the man-devourer, for the sake of the shafts that destroyed Ilion, brought to the Teucrian city thrice sacked.<\/strong><\/em> \n\tNotes<\/em>: the poem is also unintelligible without the explanatory notes, because it is also plagued, like Syrinx<\/em>, of "guessing" or "griphos<\/em>". “The woman clothed in male attire<\/em>” is Medea <\/em>fleeing from Athens <\/em>disguised as a man; The poet names the husband, Jason<\/em>, saying he was not Achilles<\/em>, who was born from Thetis <\/em>who changed shape often like the ghost Empusa<\/em>: who lay on the fire, because his mother got him into the fire except for the heel, which was vulnerable; “the Trojan cowherd<\/em>”, is Paris<\/em>; offspring of a dog<\/em> because his mother Hecuba <\/em>became dog after the fall of Troy<\/em>; Chryse <\/em>is a goddess of the northern Aegean<\/em>; the cook of men"<\/em> is Medea <\/em>who cooked Pelias <\/em>with the false promise of restoring youth; "the brazen-limbed watchman<\/em> " is the Talos<\/em> automaton, built by Hephaestus<\/em>; the faithless husband of two wives<\/em> because was born only of Hera, "the two wives<\/em>" for Aglaia <\/em>and Aphrodite<\/em>; he who was cast away by his mother because the sky threw his mother; the slayer of Theocritus<\/em>, is Philoctetes <\/em>; Theocritus <\/em>is ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/imgs\/arts\/hacha2recortado.jpg\")
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\n\t“The bed-fellow<\/em>” is Penelope<\/em>; “of nobody<\/em>” is Odysseus<\/em>; “the far-fighter<\/em>” is Telemachus<\/em>; “a stone<\/em>” is Juppiter<\/em>; “Cerastas<\/em>” is long-horned = Comatas<\/em>, long-haired; “child of the bull”<\/em> is the bees, because it was believed that bees are born from the bowels of the bulls;
\n\t"Edge shield<\/em>" because if we add a “p<\/em>” to “itys<\/em>” (shield<\/em>) we have “pitys<\/em>”, which means “pine tree<\/em>” and Pine <\/em>is also the name of a nymph <\/em>loved by the god Pan<\/em>, word which means ”all<\/em>”; “double animal<\/em>” because is goat-legged; “girl born of a voice”<\/em> is Echo<\/em>; “a shrill wound<\/em>” because Syrinx<\/em> also = fistula<\/em>; “monument of fiery love<\/em>” for Syrinx<\/em>; “the bravery”<\/em> for the Persian <\/em>at Marathon<\/em>; “the slayer of his grandfather<\/em>” is Perseus<\/em>, word that sounds similar to Persian<\/em>; “freed the Tyrian maiden<\/em>” because Europa <\/em>(Euroep<\/em>) was daughter of a Phoenician<\/em>; “the blind-bearers<\/em>” because the pastors carry satchel, which in Greek is called “pera<\/em>” and it sounds similar to “perós<\/em>”, " which means "crippled<\/em>" and the blind are disabled; “treader of flocks”<\/em> because Pan <\/em>walks on rocks and "laos<\/em>”, the" people<\/em>, sounds like "laas<\/em>", the stone<\/em>, and Deucalion <\/em>made men throwing stones over his shoulder; “Saettian woman<\/em>” is Omphalè<\/em>; “son of a thief<\/em>” , son of Hermes<\/em>; “box-footed<\/em>”, Pan<\/em> has hooves and the Greek word for hoof khele <\/em>reminds khelos<\/em>, box<\/em>, which is synonymous with larnax <\/strong>and because it Pan <\/em>is Larnakógulos<\/em>; “the mute girl<\/em>” is Echo<\/em>, who cannot speak of herself; “Calliope<\/em>” means “of beautiful voice”<\/em>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.antiquitatem.com\/imgs\/arts\/altar_d\u00f3rico3recortado.jpg\")
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\n\t(Loeb Classical Library, The Greek Antohology, vol V, translated by W.R.Paton. London. 1918)<\/p>\n