Corinna
(
Κόριννα). A poetess of Thebes (fl. B.C. 490), or,
according to others, of Tanagra, distinguished for her skill in lyric verse, and remarkable
for her personal attractions. She was the rival of Pindar, while the latter was still a young
man; and, according to Aelian, she gained the victory over him no less than five times.
Pausanias, in his travels, saw at Tanagra a picture, in which Corinna was represented as
binding her head with a fillet of victory, which she had gained in a contest with Pindar. He
supposes that she was less indebted for this victory to the excellence of her poetry than to
her Boeotian dialect, which was more familiar to the ears of the judges at the games, and also
to her extraordinary beauty. Corinna afterwards assisted the young poet with her advice. It is
related of her that she recommended him to ornament his poems with mythical narrations; but
that when he had composed a hymn, in the first six verses of which (still extant) almost the
whole of the Theban mythology was introduced, she smiled and said, “We should sow
with the hand, not with the whole sack” (Pausan. ix. 22;
De Glor.
Ath.). She was surnamed “the Fly” (
Μυῖα), as Erinna had been styled “the Bee.” The poems of
Corinna were all in the Boeotian or Aeolic dialect. Too little of her poetry, however, has
been preserved to allow of our forming a safe judgment of her style of composition. The extant
fragments refer mostly to mythological subjects, particularly to heroines of the Boeotian
legends. These remains are given by Bergk in his
Poetae Lyrici Graeci
(4th ed. 1878).