The Poet and the Bee in Classical Literature

The symbol of the bee in Classical literature has prompted discussion for centuries. What has received less thorough attention is the symbol of the bee, as well as its products—honey and wax—in the arena of ancient poetry. This dissertation aims to unpack more fully the symbolic significance of the presence of the bee, honey, and wax in relation to both the Greek or Roman poet, as well as to his or her poetic work(s). Former examinations of the bee and its products in ancient poetry explain bees’ presence in poetic verses as prophetic and/or sacred, given bees’ association with Zeus’ infancy narrative on Crete, as well as their depiction in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes as mantic entities who feed upon honeycombs in the area surrounding Delphi. Honey, pursued by humankind for tens of thousands of years for its ability to sweeten and for its important role in ancient medicine, has been amply identified as a metaphor for good poetry and talented poets—i.e., poets who are “golden-tongued” and whose verses are “honey-sweet.” This dissertation expands upon these established poetic roles of the symbol of the bee and its products through a thorough review of passages which include the bee, honey, and wax, ranging from Homeric Greek to Augustan-era Latin. It argues that Greek and Roman poets not only acknowledged the sacredness/mantic properties of the bee and its products, but also intentionally engaged in a rich “poetics of the bee,” a language centered on real-life bee lore, care, and behavior. This “language” was used by poets to cement their eternal poetic legacies, and to engage with the works both of contemporary poets and of older authors. This dissertation therefore examines how a poet’s including of the bee or its products gained momentum through the centuries as a common way in which to claim one’s poetic immortality. This dissertation also shows the vast extent to which, in the process of creating and establishing poetic fame, the presence of the bee hovers around the births, lives, deaths, and even tombs and effigies of some of the greatest Classical poets