Margites

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{{For |the synonym of the moth genus |Margitesia{{!}}Margitesia}}

The Margites ({{langx|grc|Μαργίτης}}) is a comic mock-epic ascribed to Homer[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0058:entry=*margi/ths Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, Margites] that is largely lost. From references to the work that survived, it is known that its central character is an exceedingly stupid man named Margites (from ancient Greek {{lang|grc|μάργος}}, margos, "raving, mad; lustful"), who was so dense he did not know which parent had given birth to him.Stuart Kelly, The Book of Lost Books, New York: Random House, 2005. His name gave rise to the adjective margitomanēs ({{lang|grc|μαργιτομανής}}), "mad as Margites", used by Philodemus.Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon revised edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940.

The work, among a mixed genre of works loosely labelled "Homerica" in antiquity, was commonly attributed to Homer, as by Aristotle (Poetics 13.92)—"His Margites indeed provides an analogy: as are the Iliad and Odyssey to our tragedies, so is the Margites to our comedies"—and Harpocration.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2013.01.0002%3Aletter%3Dm%3Aentry%3Dmargites Harpokration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators, § m6] Basil of Caesarea writes that the work is attributed to Homer but that he is unsure regarding this attribution.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2040.tlg002.perseus-grc1:8.#note1 Advice to Young Men on Greek Literature, Basil of Caesarea, § 8] However, the massive medieval Greek encyclopaedia called the Suda attributed the Margites to Pigres, a Greek poet of Halicarnassus.

It is written in mixed hexameter and iambic lines, an oddity characteristic also of the Batrachomyomachia (likewise attributed to Pigres), which inserts a pentameter line after each hexameter of the Iliad as a curious literary game.Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquity, New York, 1898.

Margites was famous in the ancient world, but only the following lines survive:{{Cite web |title=Margites |url=https://mythagora.com/homerica/poems/margites.html |access-date=2024-12-02 |website=mythagora.com}}{{Cite web |last=Gambino |first=Megan |date=September 19, 2011 |title=The Top 10 Books Lost to Time |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-top-10-books-lost-to-time-83373197/ |access-date=2024-12-02 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}

{{quote|There came to Kolophon an old man and divine singer, a servant of the Muses and of far-shooting Apollon. In his dear hands he held a sweet-toned lyre.

He knew many things but knew all badly... The gods had taught him neither to dig nor to plow, nor any other skill; he failed in every craft.

The fox knows many a wile; but the hedge-hog's one trick can beat them all.}}

Due to the Margites character, the Greeks used the word as an insult to describe foolish and useless people.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2040.tlg002.perseus-grc1:8.#note1 Advice to Young Men on Greek Literature, Basil of Caesarea, § 8] Demosthenes called Alexander the Great Margites in order to insult and degrade him.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2013.01.0002%3Aletter%3Dm%3Aentry%3Dmargites Harpokration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators, § m6][https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0026.tlg003.perseus-grc1:160 Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon, §160][https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg054.perseus-grc1:23 Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes, §23]