Hedyle (, ''Hḗdylē''; fl. 4th century BC) was an ancient Greek poet. She is known only through a mention in

Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (, or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; ) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and Grammarian (Greco-Roman), grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century ...

' ''

Deipnosophistae The ''Deipnosophistae'' (, ''Deipnosophistaí'', lit. , where ''sophists'' may be translated more loosely as ) is a work written in Ancient Greek by Athenaeus of Naucratis. It is a long work of Greek literature, literary, Ancient history, h ...

''. According to Athenaeus, Hedyle was the daughter of an Attic poetess, Moschine, who is otherwise unknown, and the mother of Hedylus, another poet. Hedyle was probably Athenian, like her mother. The only surviving fragment of Hedyle's poetry consists of two and a half couplets from her

elegiac The adjective ''elegiac'' has two possible meanings. First, it can refer to something of, relating to, or involving, an elegy or something that expresses similar mournfulness or sorrow. Second, it can refer more specifically to poetry composed in ...

poem ''Scylla'', quoted by Athenaeus. The poem is about the myth of

Scylla In Greek mythology, Scylla ( ; , ) is a legendary, man-eating monster that lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart, the sea-swallowing monster Charybdis. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range o ...

, a human woman who was courted by the merman

Glaucus In Greek mythology, Glaucus (; ) was a Greek prophetic sea-god, born mortal and turned immortal upon eating a magical herb. It was believed that he came to the rescue of sailors and fishermen in storms, having earlier earned a living from the ...

. Hedyle's version of the myth may have portrayed Glaucus committing suicide after being rejected by Scylla. In the version of the story told by

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

in his ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...

'', Scylla was turned into a sea-monster by

Circe In Greek mythology, Circe (; ) is an enchantress, sometimes considered a goddess or a nymph. In most accounts, Circe is described as the daughter of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid Perse (mythology), Perse. Circe was renowned for her vast kn ...

, who was jealous of Glaucus' love for her. Dunstan Lowe argues that Hedyle's version of the myth of Scylla was the inspiration for Ovid's version of the myth.

Josephine Balmer Josephine Balmer (born 1959) is a British poet, translator of classics and literary critic. She sets the daily Word Watch and weekly Literary Quiz for ''The Times''. She was born in 1959 in Hampshire and now lives in East Sussex. She studied clas ...

argues that Hedyle's choice of subject is part of a tradition of Greek women poets reinterpreting the dangerous women in

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

's ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' in a more sympathetic light, comparing it to the sympathetic portrayal of

Helen of Troy Helen (), also known as Helen of Troy, or Helen of Sparta, and in Latin as Helena, was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda (mythology), ...

Sappho 16 Sappho 16 is a fragment of a poem by the archaic Greece, archaic Greek lyric poet Sappho. It is from Book I of the Alexandrian edition of Sappho's poetry, and is known from a second-century papyrus discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt at the begi ...

References

Ancient Athenian women Ancient Greek elegiac poets Ancient Greek women poets Hellenistic poets 4th-century BC Greek poets 4th-century BC Greek women {{AncientGreece-poet-stub