Oldest Song from Ancient Greece: The Seikilos Song

The Seikilos Stele contains the oldest song from ancient Greece and dates to c.100 BCE. This video explores how the stele was found and how the song sounds; it is sung at 2:28!

As long as you live,
shine forth do not at all grieve,
Life exists for a short while,
Time takes its course.

Hoson zēis phainou
mēden holōs su lupou
pros oligon esti to zēn
to telos ho chronos apaitei.

For the ancient Greeks, music was viewed as quite literally a gift from the gods. The invention of specific instruments is attributed to particular deities: Hermes the lyre, Pan the syrinx (panpipes) and Athena the aulos (flute). The combining of words and music, melodic and scalar systems, and several of the most popular musical instruments such as the aulos and lyre probably derived from the Near East. However, the Greeks themselves considered the lyre, in particular, as a ‘Greek’ instrument whilst the aulos is often represented in mythology as an inferior foreign competitor of Eastern origin. Hence, the great Greek god Apollo, who was believed to be the master of the lyre, defeated the Phrygian Satyr Marsyas and his aulos in a musical competition judged by the Muses. The lyre was also the musical instrument, above all others, which young Greeks had to learn in their schooling and was recommended as such by Plato in his Republic.

THUMBNAIL
Marie-Lan Nguyen (2006) / Jastrow
Public Domain

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[einSteppenwolf]

The last verse —«τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ»— contains a pun, «τέλος» meaning both "end", as well as "toll": (The passing of) "time requires the end" (of the life), and (Personified) "Time demands its toll" (for having allowed us to live).

«Τίθησι» is missing a second acute on the ultimate syllable, which comes from the following «με»: «Τίθησί με».

The transliteration of «πολυχρόνιον» should be "polukhronion" (or "poluchronion") instead of "poluxronion". Same for «χρόνος»: it should be transliterated as "khronos" (or "chronos"), not as "xronos". Latin "X" transliterates Greek «Ξ», not Greek «Χ».

The word «λυποῦ» should be written as «λυ-ποῦ», not as «λυ που», as it is one word. Same holds for its transliteration, which should be "lu-pou", and not "lu pou".

The transliteration of the verse «πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῇν» —"meden oligon esti to zden"— repeats the previous "meden" instead of the correct "pros".

The circumflexes (~) are entirely missing from the Greek text.  Here is a typographically correct version:

Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου·
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ·
πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν·
τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.

In the transliteration, vowel lengths are not marked, although they are important to the rhythm of the music.

The transliteration reflects (what we think we know about) the Homeric pronunciation of Greek, which predates the song by about 800 years.  Greek was certainly not pronounced that way at the time the stele was engraved.

[sherylcrowe]

Another great video! Thank you for your hard work. It is appreciated.

[Ana_crusis]

I came across this many years ago and it was clearly stated that it was a poem from a man to his deceased wife. At the time there was no suggestion of doubt.

[forestsoceansmusic]

It's obviously NOT a "love song", but a spiritual song -- to "shine" as long as you "live", despite the shortness of life. The ancient Greeks were so advanced, not just in technology but in their spiritual ideas too. It all got horribly dumbed-down once the Roman Empire adopted the crass literalism of the "heresy-hunters" in 330 AD, and the resulting slide down into the Dark Ages got gradually quicker and quicker.

[theslof]

Thank you for the link, but i cannot seem to open it. As I will never be an expert in ancient Greek, I just remain grateful to be able to hear this.

[rwb]

The notes sung in measure 4 aren't the notes that are printed. (The sung notes are B-G-A-E, rather than the printed pitches of B-A-B-G). Which is correct: the printed pitches or the sung pitches?

[thepersiannada]

How proud we are of our Hellenic ancestry! Bravo!

[limitsunlimited]

The narrator says that the song is written in the Ionian scale. It sounds like Mixolydian to me. One could argue that this is the Ionian in the key of D. However, to my ear, it sounds like the key of A. Any opinions on that? Anybody?

[jleighphotographyandvideog]

this is a really good video for greek

[Kev.saltarelli]

I have no idea what the "Ionic scale" is that's mentioned here. Pretty sure there is no scale by this name. This song is in mixolydian. It's a lovely piece. I think it's wonderful that the oldest complete musical composition was someone using music to express their love while processing the hardships of life

[Thomas_Geist]

The music sounded mediaeval which would suggest to me that it was highly speculative. How can we possibly know anything about how it sounded with those scant single letter notations. We can do that today because everyone agrees what they mean and that they stand for known cords. Is there a written description anywhere of exactly what the notations stood for? And even when today we have something like, C maj, Gmaj7, etc. this tell us absolutely notion about the melody between the cords. I would love it if we could find out what this music sounded like since it would give us incredible insight into their world view, so I remain open minded and more than willing to be convinced.

[DimitriosDikos]

Thank you for this video. It is really an excellent work but you must have a native greek musician to sing it with the right accent.

[theslof]

Carp as you may, I am very grateful
to be able to hear, this

[andreasmpintas]

I read a lot of comments about the pronunciation. People keep in mind that we don't know how ancient Greek sounded like. Actually it's more likely they sounded like in this video, than what modern Greek sounds like.

give the singer a break, will you? :)

[nickhayes]

Very interesting, but you gloss over a critical issue m “by transcribing....” HOW did you decide what the original intended notes and timing were ?

[christopherellis]

Smyrna/İzmir, no er in it.
Sounds like folk music

[johnmark]

I believe that the song of seikilos used the dorian mode not ionian.

[Londonfogey]

What is the point of using 'CE' instead of 'AD'?

[KotsarisGR]

Great video, but as a Greek i have to say that the singer butchered it... You really needed to find a greek person with a native accent to sing it, in order to have it reconstructed properly...

[thelittlegumnut]

So this is the earliest instance of YOLO? It's basically saying: you only live for a short period of time, so don't be scared to come out of your shell. This wisdom seems to pop up in all societies, across time, which tells me that the logic behind it has been tested by millennias worth of people, and many thought it sufficiently logical to make it into a cliche.