Paraklausithyron

A Paraklausithyron (Greek παρα κλαυσι θυρον - wines / suits at the door) is a lamentation, which presents a lover at the locked front door of his beloved. The term was coined by Plutarch for his philosophical writing about love ( Erotikos 8.2 = Moralia 753 a / b).

Typical elements

Typical elements are required at his girlfriend a lover (Latin exclusus amator ) as the lyrical I of the complaint, the mostly drunk comes from a binge (which is why he takes the winding crown of the head and Zechers on the door of the beloved hangs) and intake at night, the locked door and the lover who does not like to let him out of brittleness, greed, infidelity or because of the prudence of her jealous husband or can. The lover then sits down on the threshold, which is usually portrayed as particularly hard, and trying to move through his lament either the door or the loved one to open. Here, the Epicurean argument is regularly cited, the mistress should let him in, because life is too short to do without pleasure.

The Paraklausithyron in the ancient seal

Greek poetry

The design was very popular in ancient Greek poetry. After first attempts at about Alkaios and in the comedies of Aristophanes, the frame of the Paraklausithyrons formed only from the Hellenistic period, such as in the poetry of Theocritus and Callimachus ' and in the epigrams of Asclepiades, which asks a beautiful boy for entrance. Some researchers suggest an influence of the subject also to the biblical Song of Songs ( ch. 5, v. 2-8).

Latin poetry

It was revived and varies in Roman love elegy of the first century BC. Thus Catullus wrote with carmen 67 Paraklausithyron as a dialogue with the front door, which reported the less urgent but rather curious poet gossip about the love life of the residents. In Tibullus elegy add merum ( I, 2) the poet wants his pain only stun wine sampling, then the heart of his beloved Delia soften by magic, until he threatens the smirking about this comic efforts reader who laugh about love aberrations of youth, 'll fall in love at the age and behave more undignified. Ovid finally advanced the subject by the lovers in Amores, I, 6 not the door or the mistress, but the bouncer appeals, which provides an opportunity for a social history interesting account of these slaves genus. Even in his Ars Amatoria Ovid plays with the motives of the Paraklausithyrons. Propertius finally turns the subject in his elegy Quae fueram (I, 16 ) in that order, as here, the door is suing itself, which had been excluded angesungen by too many lovers.

Horace wrote his Ode extremum Tanain (III, 10 ) is also a Paraklausithyron, but unlike the elegists he drove with the motive no semi - ironic literary game, but took up the issue again serious and loaded it through numerous scholarly allusions within the meaning of Poeta doctus poetic on.