SOURCE: "A Glance at the Hymns," in The Poet at Play: Kallimachos, "The Bath of Pallas," E. J. Brill, 1962, pp. 10-25.

In his book-length study of Callimachus 's Bath of Pallas, classicist K. J. McKay begins with an overview, excerpted below, of the poet's six hymns. In an effort to determine date of composition and what some of Callimachus's sources might have been, McKay considers the poems, especially their imagery, in relation to earlier works and in the context of the history of the Alexandrian court.

We owe the preservation of the Hymns to the tidy mind of an early scribe who brought together the Hymns of Homer, Kallimachos, Orpheus (and the Orphic Argonautica) and Proklos. It is worth bearing in mind what we would now possess but for this fortunate circumstance. Of the 95 lines of the first Hymn we would have some thirteen complete lines, parts of...