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Epithalamium. The title of a poem. The World English Dictionary: "poem or song, written to celebrate a marriage; nuptial ode." That is one I never heard. Strange as I was an English major. I thought all English majors learned every possible name for every possible type of poem or ode. But apparently not.
I am sure that you are familiar with many epithalamia but just not under that name.
"Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters", the title of a novella by J. D. Salinger. A direct translation from a line in one of the epithalamia of Sappho.
A. E. Housman wrote this, from fragments of epithalamia by Sappho:
Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings
All desired and timely things.
All whom morning sends to roam,
Hesper* loves to lead them home.
Home return who him behold,
Child to mother, sheep to fold,
Bird to nest from wandering wide:
Happy bridegroom, seek your bride!And this fragment from an epithalamium of Sappho, describing a bride---which alone would justify her high standing as one of the world's greatest poets :
Oîon tò glukúmalon ereúthetai ákroi ep' úsdoi,
ákron ep' akrotátoi, leláthonto dè malodrópeës,
ou màn ekleláthont', all' ouk edúnant' epíkesthai."Like the honey-apple that reddens at the top of a branch,
At the top of the top-most bough, the apple-pickers forgot it ---
No, they did not forget it, they could not reach so far."
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* Hesperus is, of course, Venus---seen as the Evening Star in the western twilight.
