Thamyris- Greek FigureMortal

The Bard's Lineage

Thamyris was Thracian-born, son of the singer Philammon and the nymph Argiope. His father had established the singing of choral hymns at Delphi, and his grandfather was Apollo himself, god of music. From this bloodline Thamyris inherited a voice and a mastery of the lyre that drew listeners wherever he traveled. Apollodorus describes him as beautiful and talented in equal measure. He desired the Spartan youth Hyacinthus before Apollo turned his own gaze on the same boy — according to Apollodorus, no man in Greek tradition had loved another man before Thamyris did.

The Wager at Dorion

Traveling from the court of King Eurytus at Oechalia, Thamyris grew bold enough to make a boast no mortal should have made: he could defeat the Muses themselves in song. Apollodorus sets out the stakes. If Thamyris won, he could lie with all nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. If the Muses won, they would take from him whatever they wished.

The nine met him at Dorion in Messenia. What songs were sung and how the contest unfolded, no source preserves — Homer mentions the encounter in his Catalogue of Ships and gives only the outcome. The Muses in their anger maimed the Thracian bard. They struck him blind and stripped away his minstrelsy. Both gifts went at once — sight and song — and Thamyris was left in silence and darkness.

The Broken Lyre

Pausanias walked the painted hall of the Lesche at Delphi, where Polygnotus had covered the walls with scenes of Troy's fall and the world of the dead. Among the shades he found Thamyris — seated in utter dejection, his hair and beard grown long, his blind eyes fixed on nothing. At his feet lay a lyre with its horns and strings broken. Near him sat Teiresias, another whom the gods had struck blind, though Teiresias kept his gift of prophecy. Thamyris kept nothing.