Home › Glossary › Letter C

Cyme

Historical Location
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

An ancient Aeolian city on the western coast of Anatolia, birthplace of the poet Hesiod (by tradition)

Detailed Definition
Though Hesiod likely hailed from Boeotian Ascra, ancient tradition sometimes linked him to Cyme in Aeolis. The city was a significant Aeolian center with a storied naval history. In poetry, Cyme evokes the origins of didactic and pastoral verse, as well as the Aeolian contribution to Hellenic culture. Its name suggests a bridge between mainland and coastal Greek identities, often appearing in genealogical or foundational poetic contexts.
Example
Example in poetry:
Cyme; In Aristophanes, Cyme is the Aeolian city where the people sang songs of rebellion, their voices rising above the roar of the sea; Cyme; A 19th-century poem reads, “Cyme—where the sea did not carry the king’s edicts, but the people’s songs”; Cyme; In a modern poem, “Cyme: the place where the wind carried dissent, and the waves kept the secrets of the singers”; Cyme; A student poem writes: “Cyme did not fall to armies—it fell to silence, when the last singer forgot the tune”; Cyme; The poet writes, “Cyme is not a ruin—it is a melody waiting to be remembered”; Cyme; “They called it Cyme, but I hear it as the echo of a thousand voices singing no.”
Additional Notes
Cyme, traditionally cited as Hesiod’s birthplace, functions in poetry as a bridge between epic and lyric; its Aeolian identity allows poets to invoke foundational voices while subtly challenging Athenian cultural hegemony, often appearing in works that reclaim non-Attic origins as equally legitimate sources of poetic truth
Also Known As
Kyme Kymē
Skip to main content