Dionysos, a vegetation deity, is the god of ecstasy, inspiration, religious possession, iambic (lampooning) and dithyrambic (cult) song, theater, and wine. Although the Greeks sometimes portrayed Dionysos as an invading foreign god, he was worshipped in Greece from very ancient times. His name appears in the Mycenaean Linear B tablets from Bronze Age Greece. In art, Dionysos usually wears a garland of ivy and holds a drinking cup. See the Hymn to Dionysos 7 for a longer narrative.
This hymn originally was one of the long hymns, at 411 lines; only these four fragments survive. The first fragment came near the beginning of the hymn and lists some of the many places that people claimed were Dionysos’ birthplace, only to state that his true birthplace is the Nysa near the mouths of the Nile in Egypt. The third fragment (15–37) has only recently been recognized as part of this hymn; it helps reveal the story of Hera’s eventual acceptance of Dionysos on Mount Olympos. The final twelve lines provide the ending of the original hymn.
When Semele, daughter of Kadmos and the goddess Harmonia, was pregnant with Zeus’ son, Hera, Zeus’ wife, tricked her into asking Zeus to reveal himself to her in his true form. Zeus was forced to do so because he had sworn to Semele that he would grant any request. As a result, Zeus’ heavenly fire consumed Semele. Zeus rescued the premature Dionysos from his mother’s womb and sewed him into his own thigh to complete gestation. Thus Dionysos was born twice, once from his human mother and then from his divine father. The obscure epithet for Dionysos eiraphiota—Bullgod (2)—may mean “Insewn,” referring to this story.
1. “Drakanos” is probably Drekanon, a promontory on Kos, an island southwest of modern-day Turkey. Ikaros is an island in the eastern Aegean Sea, west of Samos and northwest of Kos.
2. Naxos is a large island in the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea, where Dionysos found Ariadne after Theseus abandoned her.
3. Alpheos is a river near Olympia in Elis, in the western Peloponnesus.
5. Thebes, a city in Boeotia, was generally accepted as Dionysos’ birthplace. Euripides’ Bacchae has Dionysos born there.
8. There were many places named Nysa, located in and out of Greece, including in Caria and India.
9. Phoenicia was the coastal region north of Israel.
15–37. After Hera threw Hephaistos off Mount Olympos for being lame, Hephaistos sent her a trick golden throne. When Hera sat down on it, inescapable chains bound her, and Hephaistos refused to return to Olympos to free her. Zeus suggests (30) that their son Ares or Zeus’ son Dionysos can get Hephaistos to return. The tale would continue with Ares failing with force, while Dionysos succeeds by getting Hephaistos drunk and leading him to Olympos—thus winning Hera’s favor.
38. After a sizable gap, the hymn picks up with Zeus proclaiming biennial festivals to Dionysos. The Greeks counted the biennial festival as occurring “every third year” because they considered the year of the festival to be year 3, as well as year 1 of the next cycle.
41. Zeus is the son of the Titans Kronos and Rhea.
45. Groups of women were possessed by Dionysos with religious frenzy and so were called “maenads,” meaning “madwomen.”
49. Some sources say that Semele was called Thyone after her apotheosis, which was accomplished either at her death by Zeus or when Dionysos rescued her from the underworld.
The Hymn to Demeter is the first of the four long hymns. There are many versions of the story of Persephone’s abduction by Hades, ruler of the dead, and her cyclical return to join her mother, Demeter, the grain goddess. The Hymn to Demeter is our second-earliest recorded version, after the three lines treating the myth in Hesiod’s Theogony (912–14). Other variants probably existed previously in the oral tradition. In versions recorded in later sources, the return of Persephone causes the introduction of the seasons or the gift of agriculture. In some, Persephone’s disappearance leads immediately to famine. In others, Demeter rewards humans with her Mysteries because they helped her search for Persephone. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, however, the scene on earth with the people in Eleusis occupies the center of the story. Only after Demeter fails to make Demophon immortal does she cause the famine and succeed in causing Persephone’s return. Directly after restoring fertility to the earth, Demeter grants her Mysteries to the Eleusinians, without providing an explicit reason for her gift.
The Eleusinian Mysteries began in the seventh or eighth century B.C.E. and continued until the fourth century C.E. For nearly 1,200 years, initiates throughout the Greek world, and beyond, celebrated the most famous and popular of all the Greek mystery cults. The word “mystery” derives from mustēs (initiate). All classes, both sexes, the slave and the free, Greeks and foreigners could be initiated, as long as they had the minimal price of initiation, spoke Greek, and had not committed murder. After a purification process, sacred things (hiera) were revealed to the initiates (mustai). Secrecy was essential: no one told the uninitiated what happened at the core of the initiation experience. Thus we have information on the process of the festival, but are ignorant about the actual revelation.
The nine-day festival began in Athens in the fall. The rites included bathing in the sea, fasting, sacrificing a piglet, and a fourteen-mile torch-lit procession north to Eleusis. In Eleusis, the mustai and their guides sang, danced around the Kallikhoron well, and drank the ritual kukeōn (barley water and pennyroyal mint) before entering Demeter’s temple. The temple could hold several thousand people, but it was dark and full of pillars; initiates could not see much. Aristotle said that the mustai were not meant to learn something, but to experience and be moved (fr. 15). The experience of initiation brought joy and blessings in this life and eased the fear of death through the hope of a happier afterlife. Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries was a life-transforming experience, based on the descent and return of Demeter’s daughter.
Although this hymn directly refers to Demeter’s gift of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the poem and the core story of Demeter and Persephone are connected with other mystery festivals as well. Eleusis was the site of some women-only mysteries, including the Thesmophoria, a wide-spread festival that appears to be much older than the Eleusinian Mysteries. Several aspects of the Hymn to Demeter, such as Iambe’s jokes and Demeter’s role as nurse, may be more closely connected to the Thesmophoria than to the Eleusinian Mysteries (see Clinton 1992). Aspects of the Eleusinian Mysteries may derive from earlier local women’s festivals (see Brumfield 1996).
2. Persephone’s name isn’t given until line 56. In cult she was usually called Kore (Girl; 8).
3. The epithet “far-seeing” could also mean “mighty-voiced.”
Lines 2–3 reflect two opposing perspectives continued throughout the hymn: Zeus “gives” Persephone away as in marriage, and Helios calls Hades Demeter’s new “son-in-law” (84); yet Hades “snatches” (harpazō—“abducts,” “rapes”) Persephone, and Persephone and Demeter both repeat that the abduction was forced on her unwillingly (see DeBloois 1997).
7. This narcissus is no ordinary flower, but a hundred-headed marvel produced by Gaia specifically to entrap Persephone. Mother Earth facilitates Zeus and Hades’ plan through her dolos (lure, trick, bait; 8, 404). The flowerlike girl (8) reaches to pick the flower and instead is herself picked.
17. It is impossible to tell which of the many places called Nysa this Nysian plain refers to, which may be the point: the hymn gives the location of the event a specific name, but it is Panhellenic. The name is connected to Dionysos (see 1.8).
23. According to Richardson (1974: ad loc.), the olive trees represent nature, since they are a common Greek feature. The three-part division of gods, humans, and nature is repeated in lines 44–46 with birds instead of trees. Richardson suggests that “Olives” be capitalized because they might be tree nymphs, such as in the Hymn to Aphrodite (5.264).
25. Hekate was one of the two deities who heard Persephone’s cry. She often attends Persephone in cult depictions. Her position in the cave puts her in a liminal position, on earth and in the earth, and thus perhaps between earth and the underworld.
26. Unlike Hekate, the all-seeing sun, Helios, both heard and saw what happened.
30. Here Hades is called “son of Kronos,” the epithet frequently used for Zeus (27, etc.). The hymn makes clear the connection and complicity of the brothers; Zeus and Hades are powerful rulers (of Olympos and the underworld respectively), sons of Kronos, who arranged the transfer of Persephone from one to the other (32).
33–37. These lines give us a brief glimpse of Persephone’s point of view. She is still hopeful as long as she is on earth; she has a “strong mind” (megan noon). Most of the hymn is from Demeter’s perspective. We can tell from this passage that once Persephone enters the underworld, she no longer will see the other gods, including her mother.
42. The dark cloak Demeter puts on is a sign of her grief and, later, her anger (see Slatkin 1991: 92).
44–46. Demeter has only one clue, her daughter’s scream. Her complete state of ignorance concerning her daughter for nine days is unlike the experience attributed to other gods. Zeus did not personally communicate his plan to her through any of the usual means: other gods, humans, or birds.
47. Deo is a shortened name for Demeter (see also 211, 492).
49. Demeter here abstains from god-food and god-drink (ambrosia and nectar) and later (210) breaks her fast with human drink.
57–58. Both goddesses, Hekate and Demeter, are in a state of ignorance; only Zeus, Hades, and Helios know what is going on.
64–73. Demeter supplicates Helios with a prayer as a mortal would, even though she reminds him of her divine status. As a goddess, she should already know what happened, but here she even needs to ask whether it was man or god who took her daughter.
82–87. Helios tries to reassure Demeter that Hades is an appropriate husband for Persephone; after all, Hades is Demeter’s brother and a powerful ruler. In the original division after Zeus came to power, Zeus won the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld.
91–92. Demeter withdraws from Olympos because of her anger at Zeus for the secret arrangement, even though Hades actually took Persephone. The whole middle part of the hymn has Demeter in human disguise.
99. Drawing water was women’s duty. According to Richardson (1974: ad loc.), “Kallikhoron” (which means “lovely dancing”) is another name for Maiden Well. At line 272, Demeter commands that her temple be built on the hill above Kallikhoron.
108. The daughters of Keleos look like goddesses, while the goddess Demeter looks like an old woman.
113–17. Keleos’ daughters know that Demeter is not in the right place, sitting outside instead of inside a home (see Pratt 2000).
120–34. In literary Greek lies, such as Odysseus’ in the Odyssey, often the speaker professes to tell the truth and mixes in some truthful element. While Demeter’s story is indeed false, it blends in scraps of truth concerning the mother and daughter’s situation. “Doso” means “I will give,” which could be a true title for the grain goddess. A forcible kidnapping by pirates echoes Persephone’s situation (124–25); Demeter is on the tenth day of her fast (129); and she certainly could see Zeus as an arrogant leader (131) whom she fled by leaving Olympos.
126. Thorikos is a town on the southern coast of the Attic peninsula.
138–40. Demeter asks for employment appropriate for an old woman, not hospitality.
153–55. Kallidike names the leaders of Eleusis, the key men with timē (honor), along with her father. In other versions, Triptolemos distributed Demeter’s gift of agriculture and was an Athenian culture hero. Triptolemos and Eumolpos were the most prominent human figures in the Eleusinian Mysteries. The priest at Eleusis was drawn from the family of Eumolpos, whose name means “good singer.” Diokles, Polyxeinos, and Dolikhos received hero sacrifices in cult worship.
164. Metaneira’s “only son,” Demophon, is the heir.
187. The hymn describes Persephone as Demeter’s “blossom” (66) and Demophon as Metaneira’s “new sprout,” appropriate language in a story celebrating the goddess of vegetation.
188–90. Demeter reveals herself as a goddess, with her height and divine light. Yet, although Metaneira initially reacts with the appropriate emotions of awe, reverence, and fear (190), and offers the goddess her own royal throne (191), she immediately forgets the epiphany (213–23)—perhaps because “mortals have trouble seeing gods” (111).
195. The servant, Iambe, seems to understand Demeter’s silent grief and does what she can to help (more below). She gives Demeter a low stool to sit on, since the goddess rejects the throne. Richardson notes (1974: 213): “She is the eponym of the iambic rhythm. . . . The original use of the iambic rhythm was probably religious, and connected especially with the festivals of Demeter and Dionysos. Archilochos, the first iambic poet, came from Paros, home of an important Demeter-cult (see ad Dem. 491) and of Baubo, Iambe’s counterpart.”
197–201. Demeter disguises herself in the palace to become the nurse for the queen’s newborn son, but her grief for her daughter is unabated. She has not laughed, eaten, or drunk since she heard Persephone’s cry.
202–5. Iambe’s jokes help Demeter ease her grief. The jokes are probably obscene or sexual—Demeter is a fertility goddess. In an Orphic version, Baubo/Iambe exposes her genitals to Demeter, which makes the goddess laugh (Orphic fr. 52 K.). Baubo and obscene language are firmly connected with the Thesmophoria and other women-only festivals (see Clinton 1992; Brumfield 1996). Obscene jesting is often connected with rituals of mourning and fertility. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, the initiates participated in obscene jesting during their procession from Athens to Eleusis. The participants share not just Demeter’s sorrow in the death of her daughter but also life-renewing laughter. Iambe clearly helps Demeter: the goddess laughs and finally breaks her fast.
206–10. While Demeter turns down wine, associated with Dionysos, she accepts kukeōn, a drink of barley, water, and pennyroyal (a mint). Gods usually drink only nectar, yet here she drinks a human beverage, one appropriate to be offered to the grain goddess. The kukeōn was used in many rites connected with Demeter, including in the Eleusinian Mysteries, to break a fast.
227–30. Demeter promises to protect Metaneira’s son from sickness, natural or supernatural, with spells. The “herb cutter” would be someone who cuts herbs for magical purposes. The repetitions in these lines sound incantatory.
235–39. Demeter feeds Demophon ambrosia, literally “not-mortal” food, as if he were a god, instead of giving him the usual human baby fare. Her breath as she holds him close also helps nourish him. At night, she burns off his mortality in a fire, in the attempt to make him immortal.
242–54. The story of Thetis and Achilles follows the same pattern: to immortalize her son by the mortal Peleus, the sea goddess Thetis fed Achilles ambrosia by day and placed him in a fire by night. Peleus cried out when he saw his son in the fire. Thetis set Achilles on the ground and left them both—and so Achilles remained mortal (Apollonius, Argonautica 4.869 ff.).
Setting the child on the ground after removing him from the fire seems connected to the amphidromia rite by which the father formally recognizes his child. In this ceremony, one or more people ran around (amphidromia) the hearth fire carrying the infant, before setting him directly on the ground (see Vernant 1983: 153).
259. Styx is the river in the underworld by which the gods swear their unbreakable oaths.
260–67. Demophon remains mortal, but he will be honored with some kind of annual ritual—probably one called Ballētus, which involved a mock battle.
268–74. Thwarted in her plan to make the queen’s son her own immortal child, Demeter reveals herself and orders the Eleusinians to build her a temple. This passage seems more connected with the Thesmophoria than with the Mysteries, particularly in its emphasis on appeasement and its ritual language. In the Thesmophoria, sacrificial piglets are buried in pits, then later dug back up and their remains laid out on Demeter’s altar—“lay out” (hupothēsomai) could refer to the thesmoi (objects laid down) that the participants carried (phoros) to the pits and altar.
305. Even though the people immediately obeyed her command to build a temple, Demeter lets them suffer by causing a harsh famine. Out of her grief for her daughter and anger at Zeus, Demeter is willing to sacrifice her human charges until Zeus gives in. Demeter has recalled her power as fertility goddess in order to go on strike.
314. Iris is the messenger and rainbow goddess.
335. Erebos is another word for the underworld or House of Hades. Hermes is the only one who can conduct Persephone back up.
344–45. The line is corrupt in the Greek; thus, the leap from Persephone to Demeter may not have been in the original.
346. “Slayer of Argos” is an epithet of Hermes.
362. Hades seems to expect Persephone to accept her arranged marriage, as human women would have. Persephone, however, does not accept her abduction as a marriage at all (“still unwilling,” 344).
363–69. Before Hades lets Persephone go, he tells her of the powers and honors she will have as queen of the underworld. On earth, she is Demeter’s daughter, with no separate timē (honor) of her own.
372. Hades also slips her some mortal food to bind her to him. The phrase could mean that Hades passes or waves the seed around Persephone, or even himself, in a magical gesture. Once she has eaten in the underworld, she must return for a third of each year (399). On one hand, the pomegranate, full of juicy blood-red seeds, is a fertility symbol—eating the seed could represent the consummation of their marriage. On the other hand, women seem to have used pomegranate and pennyroyal (the mint in the kukeōn) as drugs to inhibit fertility (see Nixon 1995: 85–86)—and Persephone bore no children.
386. Maenads, literally “madwomen,” are the female worshippers of Dionysos. Mother and daughter are ecstatic to see each other again.
387–400. The bracketed words are supplements (Allen, Halliday, and Sykes 1936) to fill in a tear in the manuscript.
406. Persephone herself speaks for the first time—as noted above, the hymn is primarily from Demeter’s perspective.
418–24. Persephone names her playmates individually, including Athena and Artemis. Her companions were collectively described in line 4 as Ocean’s daughters.
434–37. This passage emphasizes the closeness of mother and daughter—they are practically one.
450. The Rarian plain was a sacred area near Eleusis.
470. Rhea reminds Demeter to return fertility to the land. At the end, the three generations of goddesses stand together with Hekate.
471–82. Demeter gives two gifts to human beings: she makes the earth fertile again and she reveals her sacred rites, the Mysteries, to prominent leaders in Eleusis. The hymn makes clear that whatever sacred event happened at the core of the Mysteries could not be spoken of to the uninitiated.
483–84. After Demeter gives her gifts to mortals, she returns to Olympos. At the beginning of the hymn, Demeter was ignorant of Zeus’ plan and seemed helpless to realize her powers. By the end, Demeter has realized the efficacy of her power to force Zeus to return her daughter. Demeter also has forged a crucial connection to human beings through the Mysteries and the Thesmophoria. Persephone has a crucial role. Hades’ trick with the pomegranate seed to keep Persephone for one-third of each year has made it possible for Persephone to cross the barriers between Olympos, earth, and the underworld. Therefore, Persephone can ensure that the initiates in the Mysteries do have a different lot after death. As queen of the underworld, she has the power to look after them then and to send them wealth while they are alive.
488. The name “Ploutos” means wealth, particularly agricultural prosperity. He is the son of Demeter and Iasion (Odyssey 5.125 ff.; Hesiod, Theogony 969 ff.)
491. Richardson remarks (1974: 321): “Paros was one of the most important centres of Demeter’s cult.” Antron is a town in Thessalia, a region in which Demeter was widely worshipped.
495. This final sentence is the most common concluding formula of the hymns. The poet, having remembered the goddess, will now continue to sing the remainder of the song, which might be a story about legendary heroes (see Bakker 2002).
In addition to being the god of music and prophecy, Apollo is the god of healing and sickness.
The Hymn to Apollo 3, like the Hymn to Hermes 4, celebrates the birth of a god and the establishment of his place in the pantheon. The first part (25–139) tells of Apollo’s birth on Delos. The second part (214 ff.) moves to the establishment of Delphi, Apollo’s first and most important oracular site. Many scholars have focused on the disjunction between the Delian (1–181) and Pythian (treating Delphi) sections of the hymn. While originally there may have been two separate hymns, the Hymn to Apollo presents a unified, though complex, song, in which each part of the narrative leads to the next. See Janko (1982: 99–115) and Stehle (1997: 178–96) on the hymns as originally separate, and Thalmann (1984: 64–73) and Bakker (2002) for their unity.
2. The opening shows that the other gods fear that the son-usurps-the-father pattern (as in Hesiod’s Theogony) is still in effect. The whole hymn establishes that this is no longer so. Apollo is a new phenomenon: a loyal son. As such, Apollo’s position of power is second only to that of his father, Zeus.
5. Leto’s “seat by the side of Zeus, which she has usurped from Hera in this poem, indicates her high rank” (Stehle 1997: 179).
15. Apollo’s sister, Artemis, the virgin mistress of wild animals, both hunting and caring for them, was born on Ortygia (16) or “Quail Island,” which is identified as Rheneia (44), the island adjacent to Delos. She was born first and, in some versions, helped with Apollo’s birth the next day.
16–18. The Greeks considered Delos the center of the Cyclades, islands that form a rough circle around Delos in the Aegean. Delos is a barren, rocky speck of an island. Kynthos, the peak of Delos, is a high hill; Inopos is a weak trickle of water running down it. Leto gave birth at the foot of Mount Kynthos, hanging on to the date palm (117).
19. According to the poet, there are a vast number of hymns about Apollo because he is a god worthy of so many hymns. It is a difficult task to find the right song for the god of song. The poet chooses to continue with the story of Apollo’s birth.
20. “Phoibos,” which means “radiant,” is used either by itself as another name for Apollo or as an epithet (Phoibos Apollo).
29. Apollo’s rule begins in Delos and spreads to all the other parts of Greece listed next. Leto searched for a birthplace in all these lands that Apollo later rules.
30–44. The catalogue of islands and coastlands covers a broad area of the Aegean, listed roughly clockwise in direction, with adjustments to fit the poetic meter.
Crete: The largest island at the southernmost end of the Aegean, Crete was associated with the Delian festival and with Delphi.
Athens: Crete to Athens is a rather large jump.
Aigina: An island just southwest of Athens.
Euboea: The long, narrow island northeast of Attica, with narrow straits on one side and the Aegean on the other.
Aigai: A common name, it probably refers to a town in Euboea on the Euboean Gulf.
Eiresiai: Unknown; probably near Aigai.
Peparethos: An island just north of Euboea.
Athos: Mountains on a peninsula extending northeast of Pelion.
Pelion: A mountain range northwest of Peparethos.
Samothrace: An island just south of Thrace.
Ida: A mountain range in Troas, south of Troy (in northwest modern-day Turkey).
Skyros: An island east of Euboea.
Phocaea: A city on the coast on Asia Minor, south of Lesbos (37). Lesbos is the large island south of Ida (and was the birthplace of the lyric poet Sappho).
Autokane: A mainland port across from the south point of Lesbos, north of Phokaia.
Imbros: An island southeast of Samothrace.
Lemnos: An island southwest of Imbros.
Makar: “Makar” means “blessed,” which is a common epithet of the gods. According to Homer (Iliad 24.544), Makar, son of Aiolos, the wind god, was king of Lesbos.
Chios: An island south of Lesbos. Chios was traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Homer (172).
Mimas: A mountain on the mainland opposite Chios.
Korykos: A mountain south of Mimas.
Klaros: A sanctuary on the coast of Asia Minor east of Korykos, just north of Ephesus.
Aisagee: Unknown.
Samos: An island close to the mainland, south of Klaros.
Mykale: A mountain east of Samos on the mainland.
Miletos: A coastal city just south of Mount Mykale.
Kos: An island in the Sporades, south of Miletos, inhabited by the Meropes.
Knidos: The peninsula jutting out south of Kos.
Karpathos: An island south of Kos, toward Crete.
Naxos and Paros: The two islands south of Delos (see Dionysos 1.2 and Demeter 2.491).
Rheneia: Artemis’ birth island, to the immediate west of Delos (also called Ortygia, 16).
47–49. Now we find out why Leto had to journey so far—all the personified lands were afraid to let Apollo be born on them.
51–60. Leto tries to persuade Delos to allow her to give birth there. She argues that since Delos’ soil is so poor, a temple to Apollo would bring in important revenue. Visitors to the temple will bring offerings that enrich and feed the surrounding populace. The other, fertile lands (48) could afford to turn her down.
In a version referred to in Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos, Delos originally was a daughter of Titans, who fled into the sea to avoid being raped by Zeus. She turned into a floating island, who took root only after Apollo’s birth.
62. Leto’s father, Koios, is a Titan, one of Ouranos and Gaia’s sons.
67–78. Delos explains why she is afraid of Apollo: she has heard that the new god will be violent and arrogant toward gods and mortals. Delos fears that as soon as Apollo is born, he will destroy her, sinking her in the sea, and build his temple elsewhere.
79–82. Delos agrees to be Apollo’s birthplace if Leto will swear that Apollo’s first temple and oracle will be on Delos.
86–87. Leto swears that Apollo will build his temple on Delos. She doesn’t mention the oracle, which is reserved for Delphi.
93. In Homer, Dione is the mother of Aphrodite.
94. Themis is the goddess of law and justice; Amphitrite is Poseidon’s wife.
95. Hera is first mentioned here as the goddess who is not attending the laboring Leto. See Hera 12 and Aphrodite 5.40–44 for hymns that mention Hera’s equality with Zeus.
97. Eileithyia, the birth goddess, must be present for Leto to give birth. Hera distracts her from knowing about Leto because Hera is jealous that Leto is giving birth to a powerful son of Zeus, her own husband (100–101).
120. The women raised the ritual cry of joy at a birth; they ululated (ololuxan).
123–24. Leto did not nurse Apollo. Instead, Themis fed the newborn Apollo nectar and ambrosia, the food of the gods. The effect was instantaneous: as soon as Apollo ate, he shook off his baby clothes (127–29), made a programmatic statement (131–32), and “strode” (134) off to begin his travels as a full-grown adult.
131–32. Apollo’s first words proclaim his place among gods and humans. Apollo is the god of two stringed instruments: the lyre, plucked with a pick (plectrum), represents Apollo’s sphere of music (including song and dance), and the bow Apollo’s killing and healing powers. As the Destroyer, Apollo shoots plague into the Greek camp in the Iliad; and he is also the Healer.
The second line provides the focus for the poem from line 182 on: Apollo’s role as god of prophecy. Apollo knows Zeus’ “unerring will” or “unerring counsel” (132, 253, 293) and will communicate it to human beings. Thus Apollo has a crucial role in connecting the human and divine; through his oracles, he provides signs of Zeus’ will to clueless humans.
136–39. Lines 136–38 appear only in the text of one manuscript and seem to be a variant for line 139. Although it seems unlikely that both versions would have been sung together in antiquity, the four lines work together nicely to emphasize the amazing gilding of Delos in her joy at Apollo’s birth.
146–78. This passage celebrating Apollo’s gift of song in the human realm refers to the annual festival to Apollo on Delos, when the Ionian Greeks from the islands and coastland off Asia Minor would gather to worship Apollo.
157–61. The Delian chorus was famous; here, they are like human Muses in their skill. At a festival to Apollo and in a hymn to Apollo, it makes sense for them to begin their song with Apollo and then move on to his mother and sister. The second part of their song would be an “epic tale” about legendary heroes. The Greek uses the same word for hymns such as the Hymn to Apollo and epics such as Homer’s Iliad—in performance, the hymn would precede the epic (see Bakker 2002).
162–64. The singers are so skilled that they can imitate all the various Greek dialects and even the sound effects of the castanets accompanying the dance.
165–78. The poet hails the Delian singers directly and says that they will remember him as the best bard, that he will spread their fame, and that he will always hymn Apollo. Usually at the end of the hymns, the poet says “farewell” (khaire, “rejoice,” “hail”) to the god and promises to remember him or her. Here the poet says farewell to the Delian girls and asks them to remember him. At line 178, the poet affirms that he will now continue (not stop) singing this hymn to Apollo, the “skillful Archer” (literally, who “attains his aim” or whose “arrows never miss”). See Miller (1986).
179. Lykia and Maionia are two districts in western Asia Minor.
183. With the reference to Pytho, another name for Delphi, the hymn will move toward the tale of how Apollo established Delphi. But first, the hymn shows Apollo’s ascent to Olympos (186–87) and the effect of his music on the gods (188–206). The beginning of the hymn (2–18) also describes Apollo’s arrival on Olympos; this repetition, called “ring composition,” is a traditional feature of early Greek poetry (note the identical transitional lines, 19 and 207, as well).
189. The nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory), the Muses, are the goddesses of poetic inspiration and the arts (later, all intellectual pursuits). Their song of the gifts and sufferings that the gods bestow on hapless humans is quite different from the song of the Delian girls (158–64).
194. The three Graces, or Charites, are often associated with Apollo and the Muses (see Hymn to the Muses, Apollo, and Zeus 25).
The Horai are the goddesses of seasons, hours, and time. The Graces and Horai are usually portrayed dancing, singing, and playing instruments.
195. Aphrodite is the goddess of sexuality. See Hymns to Aphrodite 5, 6, and 10.
The daughter of Aphrodite and the war god Ares, Harmonia was married to the mortal Kadmos, father of Semele (for Semele, see Dionysos 1).
Hebe is the daughter of Hera and Zeus, and her name means “youth.” She married Herakles (15.8) when he became immortal.
200. Ares, son of Zeus and Hera, is the god of war, especially blood-thirsty war, although Hymn to Ares 8 provides a broader perspective.
207–13. Before the poet focuses on the founding of Delphi, he teases his audience with some of the various episodes concerning Apollo that the song could have turned to. The references are obscure, but the gist is Apollo’s rivalry with men for the affection of one woman or more. No myths portray Apollo as lucky in love.
209–10. Iskhus was Apollo’s rival for Koronis. In a popular version, Apollo killed Koronis because she betrayed him with a mortal man when pregnant with Asklepios.
211. Phorbas and Ereutheus may have been other suitors of Koronis or Apollo’s rivals for someone else.
212. Leukippos competed with Apollo for Daphne’s affections: neither god nor man was successful.
213. The reference is unclear.
214–26. Apollo matches Leto’s earlier journey with one of his own as he searches for a place appropriate to build his most important prophetic center. Delphi is directly south of Pieria, home of the Muses; Apollo travels southward, then swings east through Euboea, before heading west to Mount Parnassus.
Pieria: The region in northern Greece, south of Macedonia, that contains Mount Olympos.
Lekton: Unidentified.
Ainianes: These people lived at the source of the Spercheios river that flows into the Malian Gulf, across from the northern tip of Euboea.
Perraiboi: These people lived at Larissa, just south of Pieria. The order of the Ainianes and Perraiboi is reversed for metrical reasons.
Iolkos: A city on the coast near Mount Pelion, north of Euboea.
Kenaion: A cape on the northwest tip of Euboea.
Lelanton: The fertile plain in Euboea, across the Euripos strait from Boeotia on the mainland.
Mykalessos: Apollo continues his course west through Boeotia, passing through the towns Mykalessos and Teumessos.
Thebes: Apollo continues through the forested spot that very early in Greek history became the important city of Thebes.
230–38. Located on the south shore of Lake Copais in Boeotia, Onchestos was the site of a famous sacred grove of Poseidon. Only this hymn describes the ritual in honor of Poseidon, the god of horses and water. Perhaps the participants in this rite could divine the god’s will from the horses or the chariot offerings.
Moira (238) is the goddess Destiny.
240–43. The geography is tangled here.
Kephisos: A river pouring into Lake Copais.
Lilaia: A town at the northern foot of Mount Parnassus.
Okaleia: A town near Haliartos.
Haliartos: A town west of Onchestos, following the same path toward Delphi.
244. Telphusa is both a spring at the foot of Mount Helicon and a nymph.
247–55. Mother and son end their journeys differently. Leto asks Delos’ permission to give birth there and receives it. When Apollo chooses Telphusa to be the site of his temple, he abruptly informs her of his decision and starts building.
250. Europe here refers to the mainland north of the Peloponnesus.
256. Apollo’s arrogance angers Telphusa, but she hides it because he is so much more powerful than she (267–68). She persuades him that her spring has too much traffic for his purposes (262–66) and that a port town off the Gulf of Corinth below the next mountain over (Krisa at the foot of Mount Parnassus, 269) will be much better. She neglects to mention the ferocious female dragon inhabiting that prime location.
273. Iepaean is a title of Apollo as the healer god, and also is applied to the song (paean) sung in worship of him (500, 517). Paeans were sung in competitions at Delphi; those competitions became the core of the Pythian Games, paralleling the Olympic Games.
275–76. The narrative explains Telphusa’s reason for deceiving Apollo as her desire to keep the glory of that spot only for herself. The Greek word for “glory” is kleos, which means fame or glory retold in song or story.
278. Phlegyans lived in the city of Panopeos, west of Lake Copais in Boeotia.
295–96. Erginos’ sons, Trophonius and Agamedes, represent the epitome of architects. Other people finished the temple.
301–4. Apollo will kill the female dragon at lines 357–70. In other versions, the dragon/snake is male. These earlier lines establish that Apollo is the dragon slayer and that the dragon needs to be slain. According to the hymn, she is an evil monster who destroyed men and their domestic stock.
305–55. Typhon is a hundred-headed snakelike monster described in the same terms as the dragon: they are evil banes (304, 352) and destructive to humans (303, 355). This fifty-line digression in the middle of the story of Apollo slaying the dragon shows that the dragon was so evil that she was the appropriate nurse or foster mother for Typhon. It also returns to Hera’s antagonism toward Zeus’ patriarchal order and Zeus’ children born to other goddesses and mortals once she was his wife (as seen in the Leto episode earlier).
In Hesiod’s Theogony (821–22), Typhon (many spellings) was the last child of Gaia (Earth) and Tartaros (Underworld). According to Hesiod (837), Typhon would have displaced Zeus to become the ruler of humans and gods, but Zeus conquered him and banished him to Tartaros. Typhon and the dragon both were hostile to Zeus’ order and thus to his spokesman, Apollo. Typhon, however, is immortal, while the dragon is not. In the Hymn to Apollo, the dragon episode provides Apollo with a chance to have a heroic exploit appropriate to a loyal son–killing a female dragon identified with Hera, rather than battling his father.
The hymn gives Typhon’s parentage, but not the dragon’s. Later sources have the dragon originally a guardian of Gaia’s temple; that temple later became Themis’ before Apollo took over. See Fontenrose (1959) on Typhon and dragon combat.
307–9. Hera conceives Typhon on her own, without any help from Zeus, out of rage at Zeus for bearing Athena on his own. In Hesiod’s Theogony (888–98), Zeus swallows his first wife, Metis (Intelligence), when she is pregnant with Athena, to prevent the conception of a son who would conquer him. Zeus then gives birth to Athena from his own head (924; see Hymn to Athena 28). Typhon could be seen as the attempt of Gaia (Theogony 820–68) and Hera (Hymn to Apollo 3.327) to give birth to the son who could overthrow Zeus.
316. In Hesiod, Hera gives solo birth to Hephaistos, the lame smith god, in her anger at Zeus. Here, Hephaistos is the son of Zeus and Hera.
317–21. Hera despises her “weakling” son, Hephaistos, and throws him off Mount Olympos. Thetis, the sea goddess mother of Achilles, nurses him back to health. Because Thetis’ son was destined to be more powerful than his father, Zeus forced Thetis to marry a mortal man, Peleus.
334–35. Hera prays for help from Gaia and Ouranos and their children, the Titans, who fought Zeus. She wants a child greater than Zeus to conquer him (338–39), just as Zeus conquered his father, Kronos.
356–57. The narrative returns to Apollo slaying the dragon, who always killed whatever people or animals happened upon her.
358–70. Apollo shoots the dragon in one line, but it takes her thirteen lines to die.
367. Typhon mated with Echidna, a goddess half snake, half woman, who bore the Hydra (a many-headed water serpent), the mother of Chimera, a fire-breathing, three-headed combination of snake/dragon, lion, and goat (Hesiod, Theogony 319). Apollo taunts the dragon that neither her foster child nor any related immortal monsters can save her from death.
372. Apollo names his new site Pytho, which means “rot,” because the dragon’s body rotted there in the heat of the sun.
375–87. Once Apollo kills the dragon, he realizes that Telphusa tricked him. In his fury, he destroys her spring and marks the spot for himself with an altar. This incident explains why Apollo has the title Telphusian. Apollo is capable of the destructive rage that Delos feared.
389. Now that Apollo has founded Delphi, he needs priests to run it. From line 388 to the end, the hymn tells the story of how Apollo hi-jacked a ship from Crete and pressed the sailors into being his priests.
393–96. There was a cult of Apollo Delphinios (the dolphin) at the great palace city on Crete, Knossos; according to legend, Knossos was ruled by King Minos, son of Zeus and Europa. Thus we call the pre-Hellenic civilization on Crete the Minoan Civilization.
These four lines summarize the duties of the Cretan priests at Delphi: they perform sacrifices to Apollo and announce his oracles. This hymn focuses on the patriarchal order of Zeus and Apollo against destructive female forces: the wholly evil female dragon and Hera’s attempts to disrupt Zeus’ plans that are foiled by his overthrow of Typhon and the successful birth of Apollo. Absent from this hymn are the female Pythia—in historical times, the medium possessed by Apollo to speak his oracles, which were then inscribed in verse by the priests and given to the recipient—and traditions that Delphi originally was an oracle of Gaia and then Themis before Apollo took over. Perhaps a Minoan-type snake goddess originally was worshipped at Delphi; such worship might help explain why the priests are Cretan.
397–98. The Cretans were merchant sailors, planning to conduct business at Pylos. The Pylos mentioned here must be the one in the northwestern Peloponnesus in the district of Elis.
409–29. Apollo, in the guise of a dolphin, guides the ship in clockwise direction around the Peloponnesus from Cape Malea, the southeastern point, into the Gulf of Corinth.
The Laconian district includes Sparta.
422–29. Although the ship sails north along the western coast of the Peloponnesus, the places listed in the hymn are not in geographical sequence.
Arena: Either Erana in Messenia, west of Laconia, or Samikon, a town more to the north (toward Olympia) in the Elis district in the westernmost Peloponnesus.
Argyphea: Unknown.
Thryon: Epitalion, a city on the Alpheos river, by Olympia.
Aepy: A town nearby.
Cruni and Chalcis: Rivers that ran south of Alpheos.
Dyme: A town north of Elis.
Phera: A common name; this could be the Phara east of Dyme. Zeus helps Apollo bring the Cretans to Delphi; after all, the oracles are signs of Zeus’ will.
Ithaca: Odysseus’ home, an island west of the Gulf of Corinth, in the Ionian Sea.
Dulichium, Same, Zacynthus: Dulichium (Leucas?) and Zacynthus are islands near Ithaca; Same is a town opposite Ithaca on the island Cephallania.
431. The ship continues around the Peloponnesus to enter the long Gulf of Corinth.
451. Apollo initially addresses the Cretans as if he were any man questioning strangers. His first four lines repeat the traditional question to sailors (cf. Odyssey 3.71–74, 9.252–55).
463. The Cretan leader sees that Apollo looks more like a god than a human, but still believes that he is speaking with a human. Otherwise, why ask the gods to bless the questioner (466)? The leader does know that a god brought them to Krisa and emphasizes that it was “against our will” (473; see also 471). His tale resembles Demeter’s story to the daughters of Keleos about being captured from Crete by pirates against her will (Demeter 2.122–25).
529–30. Like Delos, Delphi is rocky and infertile. The Cretans have a legitimate concern that they might have trouble making a living off the land while acting as servants of Apollo’s temple.
532–33. Human concerns seem foolish to the gods (Demeter 2.256–58). Apollo says that they are always looking for trouble. He reassures them that all the people who come to worship Apollo will bring offerings (535–37), which will enable the priests to live in luxury.
538–89. These two lines, probably together with a missing third line, reiterate the priests’ tasks: they must take care of Apollo’s temple, welcome and serve (530) the people who come seeking divine insight, and, most important, follow Apollo’s instructions. If they do these things, then they will be honored (483–85), know the gods’ will, and live well.
540–43. The priests are warned to behave appropriately—if they do or say anything rashly, forgetting Apollo’s “direction” (539), then they will be ruled by other men. This could mean that Delphi would be corrupted and the oracles inspired by politics or payment rather than the god. Or perhaps it refers to the contemporary situation: the supplanting of Cretan priests by the local female priestess, the Pythia.
“Arrogant violence” translates the Greek word hubris, which literally means violent action based on an arrogance of attitude, not merely “pride” as it is commonly used today. Line 541 reads “the hubris that is themis among mortals.” In some ways, themis is the opposite of hubris. Themis, the goddess of law and justice, feeds the newborn Apollo (124); she represents right actions toward men and gods. In line 541, themis means “customary”: Apollo says that hubris, rash speech and actions, are common practice or even habitual for human beings. For the priests to remain true to their charge, however, they will have to live exemplary lives guided by divine will (see Miller 1986: 103–8).
Like the Hymn to Apollo 3, the Hymn to Hermes celebrates the birth of a god and the establishment of his place in the pantheon. The two hymns are opposite in tone, however. The Hymn to Hermes reveals Hermes’ character, showing how this trickster—“a wily child with a seductive mind” (13)—gains the goods and honors that he desires. Hermes uses whatever methods succeed: theft, deception, magic, lies, persuasion, and force. These strategies illustrate Hermes’ function as god of commerce, inventions, skillful use of language, luck, music, thieves, travel, boundaries, and herds. He is the guide of travelers and the conductor of souls into the house of Hades.
Most of the action of the hymn centers around Hermes’ invention of the lyre, his theft of Apollo’s cattle, and their settling of accounts. Its humor lies primarily in the contrast between the depiction of Hermes as a newborn infant and his actions, and in the initial conflict between Apollo and Hermes. The virile god Apollo, established god of the lyre and prophecy, is here bested by the cunning of his newborn half-brother. In Hymn to Apollo 3 and in all other literary references, the lyre is Apollo’s signature instrument, established before Hermes’ birth. In Hymn to Hermes 4, the lyre is Hermes’ own invention, never heard before by Apollo. The sound of the lyre persuades Apollo to give Hermes whatever he wants, except Zeus’ gift of oracular prophecy. Hermes gives Apollo the lyre and a promise not to steal from him. Apollo gives Hermes the cows, a magic wand (the caduceus), the prophetic Bee Maidens, and other honors. The brothers move from rivalry to permanent friendship, and Hermes wins an honored place among the Olympian gods.
1. Maia is a minor goddess, daughter of Atlas and one of the Pleiades.
2. Kyllene is a mountain in Arcadia, a district in the center of the Peloponnesus.
3. Hermes is the god most associated with luck and profit; the epithet here translated “luck-bringing” (eriounion) might also mean “swift.”
4. Here “nymph” means a minor goddess, but the word can also mean a spirit between human and divine, or even simply a human bride.
6. That Maia lives in a cave, rather than on Mount Olympos, shows her low status.
19. The fourth day was considered lucky.
25. Immediately after his birth, Hermes turns a mountain tortoise that he chances upon into the lyre, a stringed musical instrument. This is the first of Hermes’ three main inventions in the hymn: lyre, fire sticks (109–10), and panpipes (512).
31. Hermes addresses the tortoise as if she were a hetaira, a paid female companion.
36. This proverb appeared first in Hesiod’s Works and Days (365). Of course, Hermes uses the proverb ironically, since he plans to kill the tortoise inside his house, while she was sale grazing outside.
37–38. The live tortoise is a charm against evil spells; the dead tortoise becomes the lyre.
47–51. These lines precisely describe the making of a tortoiseshell lyre: the cowhide tautly covers the hollow of the shell, “the lengths of reed . . . support the stretched hide surface,” the arms (“originally they were the horns of an animal,” but not here) are set into the shell parallel to each other, and a crossbar is fitted across the two arms, joining them (Anderson 1994: 54–55). Then the sheep-gut strings are stretched between the crossbar and the tortoiseshell base.
53. The pick is a plectrum (plektron).
55. At a symposium, men, while drinking, would challenge each other to sing.
59. Hermes sings a hymn to himself on his new instrument: an improvisation on an improper subject, his own conception.
62. After Hermes invents the lyre, he returns to his original desire to steal Apollo’s cattle.
70. Mount Olympos is in Pieria in northern Greece, south of Macedonia. Hermes makes a very long journey from his home in Arcadia to Pieria to Pylos (where he hides the cattle) and back to Arcadia.
71. Out of all the divine cattle, Hermes only steals Apollo’s: “Hermes chooses to raid his wealthiest and most influential brother” because of the prestige Apollo’s eventual friendship will bring (Haft 1996: 28).
73. The epithet Argeiphontēs means either “Slayer of Argos” or “Dog Slayer.” Hermes won the title Slayer of Argos when he killed, at Zeus’ request, the many-eyed giant Argos, who was guarding Io for Hera. Zeus had raped Io and then turned her into a cow; Argos originally may have been a guard dog. See Chittenden (1948).
77–78. This is the first of three magic tricks: here Hermes makes the cows walk backward; later, he enters his house through the keyhole (146), and then makes the willow boughs take root and grow over the cows (410–12).
79–85. Hermes whips together some snowshoe sandals so that he can easily skate over the sand and cover his tracks. Gods usually fly.
87. The old man that Hermes meets along his way is the only human in the poem.
92–93. Hermes uses a proverb: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, since it’s none of your business. While Hermes warns the old man not to tell on him, he never imposes any punishment when Apollo is told. Actually, it is essential for the story that Apollo find out about the theft—only then can Hermes acquire the honors that he desires. In addition to Apollo’s respect, Hermes wants Zeus to recognize him as his son (312). See Haft (1996: 36); Tzifopoulos (2000: 158).
99. Selene, the moon, is the daughter of Hyperion in Hesiod’s Theogony and in Hymn to Helios 31.
109. Hermes uses the laurel, Apollo’s own tree and his symbol, to start the fire in which he cooks Apollo’s cows (I am grateful to Molly O’Connor for making this observation in a 2002 class).
128. Hermes prepares an offering or feast for the twelve gods, including himself.
130–33. As in line 64, Hermes desires to eat meat. As a god he should not be craving meat—gods eat nectar and ambrosia. Hermes is the god of feasts and moves in the outside spaces of the human realm, beyond the hearth of Hestia fixed at the center of the household. He lives “among mortals on terms of intimacy” as “the mediator between mortals and the gods” (Vernant 1983: 129). The god who crosses boundaries understands human desires. Yet if Hermes is going to work his way up from his cave to Mount Olympos successfully, he needs to resist the part of his nature that might lead him to associate too closely with humans.
134–35. Hermes either leaves the meat and fat hanging in midair or places them on a rocky ledge.
166. Hermes’ art, tekhnē, is his skill at trickery, magic, theft, invention, and language. The root of the word here translated as “serve” means “tend cattle.”
169. The Oxford text (Allen, Halliday, and Sikes 1936) has “prayers” (alistoi) instead of the other emendation suggested, “food” (apastoi).
183. The aegis is a goatskin cloak or shield of power that only Zeus and his representative, Athena, can use.
199. In this hymn devoted to Hermes, the great god Apollo is forced to ask a human for help in finding his cattle.
201–5. The old man first makes a general statement on the difficulty of trusting or understanding what one sees.
208–11. Then he expresses doubt and amazement concerning what he saw: a baby driving cattle backward. Apollo had expected to discover that a man had stolen his cattle.
212–14. Apollo could not interpret this information before seeing a bird omen. Even then, he still goes to Pylos to find his cattle, rather than directly to Hermes’ cave.
216. The Pylos mentioned here must be the one in the northwestern Peloponnesus, near the Alpheos river.
219–26. When Apollo first sees the tracks of his cattle and of Hermes, the cattle seem to be returning back to their meadow, and he doesn’t recognize the prints of Hermes’ strange sandals at all.
256. Tartaros is another name for the House of Hades, the underworld. Apollo immediately turns to force.
259. The “little men” are children or other worthless dead in the underworld.
294–97. To resist Apollo, Hermes sends out two omens: a fart and a sneeze. The Greeks believed that many things were signs of divine will, including birds of prey and unexpected bodily noises. Apollo properly interprets Hermes’ omens and drops him.
319. The two sons of Zeus, Apollo and Hermes, reach a stalemate. Hermes is polumētis (i.e., has much cunning intelligence), while Apollo is polumēchanos (i.e., has many resources).
354–55. Apollo does not tell the truth. The old man did not see or tell Apollo where Hermes brought the cattle. Apollo guesses that the cattle are in Pylos.
368. Hermes does tell the truth, of a sort. He did not drive the cows to his house (379): he hid them in the cave. He did not walk over his threshold (380): he turned into mist and slipped in through the keyhole. Hermes, god of tricky language, knows that only the literal meaning of oaths binds one.
403. At the sight of the sacrificed cows, Apollo decides that Hermes is already too powerful and so tries to tie him up. The bindings instantly drop off Hermes (410); but before Apollo can try any other violence, Hermes reveals the lyre (418).
415–16. The gleam of fire is the sparkle in Hermes’ eyes. Hermes wants to distract Apollo.
427–28. Hermes’ second song is his theogony, telling of the birth of the gods.
429. The name “Mnemosyne” means “memory.”
478–88. Hermes refers to the lyre as a hetaira and instructs Apollo in her proper care. If one approaches the lyre properly, with knowledge, she sings beautifully. If one treats her roughly, she won’t. Hermes and Apollo share the gift of music and the gift of herding cattle (491, 498). The herds will become more fruitful under Hermes’ care, and both gods will come out ahead.
512. In another version (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.689–712), a nymph named Syrinx turned into marsh reeds in order to avoid the god Pan. Pan cut some of the reeds into different lengths and attached them together to create “panpipes.”
526. There may be a gap in the text between lines 526 and 527.
541–49. In the Hymn to Apollo, Apollo’s charge is to “proclaim to humans the unerring will of Zeus” (3.132). The Hymn to Hermes, however, declares that Apollo confuses humans by sometimes giving them true omens and sometimes false. Just as those who improperly turn to the lyre receive no wisdom, those who turn to prophecy contrary to Apollo’s will may be deceived.
552. The three “holy sisters” are bees, who give true prophecies when fed with honey. These Bee Maidens probably are bees associated with the Corycian nymphs, who lived in a cave seven miles from Delphi below Mount Parnassus (see Larson 1995). Humans can learn this form of prophecy (565).
569–73. In the possible gap between lines 568 and 569, the speaker may change from Apollo to Zeus, since Zeus is the appropriate god to grant Hermes the gifts named here.
Aphrodite in this hymn is the daughter of Zeus, as in the Iliad, not the Aphrodite from Hesiod’s Theogony, who was born from the castrated genitals of Ouranos (Heaven) mixed with sea foam (aphros). The Hymn to Aphrodite both celebrates the goddess’s power of sexuality and shows how Zeus limits that power. Before the story in the hymn takes place, Aphrodite controls the sex life of the great god Zeus by making him, and other gods, desire and mate with humans. The narrative shows how Zeus puts a stop to that. Zeus weakens Aphrodite’s power by infecting her with the same desire with which she has infected the other gods: he makes her long for a human, Anchises. This hymn suggests that their son, Aeneas, is the last of the mortal children born of the gods’ unions with humans.
2. Aphrodite is closely associated with the islands Cyprus (west of Syria) and Cythera (south of the Peloponnesus) and so is often called the Cyprian or Cypris, or Cytheria (6).
6–7. Aphrodite aroused desire in all gods, humans, and beasts, except for the three virgin goddesses described below.
8. Athena is the goddess of war and crafts, kingship, crafts, and the olive tree. According to Hesiod’s Theogony (886–900), Zeus swallowed his first wife, Metis (Intelligence), when she was pregnant with Athena, to prevent Metis from conceiving a son who would overthrow his rule. Athena was born from Zeus’ head. See Hymns to Athena 11 and 28.
11. The “glorious work” (erga, 14) of women in the house echoes the “glorious deeds” (erga) of war. Athena honors both.
17. The loud sound translated as “baying” could be Artemis shouting in the hunt, rather than the noise of her dogs; Artemis’ “golden distaff” (18) could also be translated “golden arrows.” See Hymns to Artemis 9 and 27.
21–23. Although few myths about Hestia exist, the goddess of the hearth was worshipped widely, both publicly and privately. According to Hesiod (Theogony 454), she was the firstborn child of Kronos and Rhea. Kronos swallowed his children as soon as they were born to prevent them from conquering him—all except his lastborn, Zeus, whom Rhea hid away. When Zeus conquered his father, he forced Kronos to regurgitate those siblings in reverse order. Hestia was the first born from Rhea, and thus she was also the last born from Kronos. See Hestia 24 and Hestia and Hermes 29.
24. No other surviving literature records the marriage proposals by Poseidon and Apollo.
36. The crux of the matter: Aphrodite has power even over Zeus, which he cannot allow to continue.
53. Anchises is descended from the Trojan Dardanos (177), Zeus’ favorite son born from mortal women (Iliad 20.304–5). As Aeneas proclaims in the Iliad (20.215–40), Dardanos’ grandson is Tros (in this poem, 207)—the father of Ganymede (202) and great-grandfather of Anchises, and of Priam and his brother Tithonos (218).
56. Aphrodite does not seem to be aware of Zeus’ plan until after the fact.
58–65. Before Aphrodite approaches Anchises, she makes herself irresistible, like a warrior arming for battle (for example, Achilles in Iliad 19.364–91). The three Graces anoint her with ambrosia (63), the liquid that sustains the gods.
84–90. The disguise is not fully persuasive. Not only has Aphrodite appeared out of nowhere on the mountain, but her beauty, clothes, and jewelry are more than human. The use of clothing and jewelry to represent power is very old. In a hymn concerning Aphrodite’s Sumerian precursor, Inanna, the goddess girds herself in full finery to descend to the underworld (Wolkstein and Kramer 1983: 52–53). See the note to lines 162–65, below.
91–106. Anchises is struck with desire when he sees the goddess, but he prays to her in a respectful manner. Better to err by treating her as a divinity: if Aphrodite really is the human woman she claims to be, she won’t be insulted by this greeting.
92–99. He names a list of goddesses that she might be, which includes the correct guess, as well as suggesting the possibility that she might be a nymph. “Nymph” here refers to the tree or mountain spirits who are like the gods, but who eventually do die.
100. Anchises follows the proper prayer formula: first he tries to address her by name, then he offers her something (an altar and regular animal sacrifice), before making his request.
103–6. He asks for honor among his people, a healthy son, and a long, happy life. These are not the usual requests from an epic “hero” (76), which tend to focus on glory in battle. Compare Achilles’ choice of a short life with fame (kleos), rather than a long life without, or Hektor’s prayer for his son (Iliad 9.412–16, 6.476–81; see Smith 1981: 47–48).
109–42. Like Demeter’s lie to the daughters of Keleos (Demeter 2.122–25) and Odysseus’ many lies in the Odyssey, Aphrodite’s false tale succeeds in eliciting the exact response she desires. Her speech to Anchises is skillful, although her appearance alone probably persuades him.
111–16. Aphrodite gives herself a human family, naming as her father the king of Phrygia in Asia, and supplies a reason for her ability to speak Trojan. This is the earliest text that notes language differences (Smith 1981: 50).
117–29. She proceeds to explain, in an outlandish tale, how she ended up on the mountain and insists that the gods themselves have arranged her marriage to Anchises. That Hermes stole her from a dance to Artemis explains her fancy attire and emphasizes her desirability and marriageable age. Anchises has just said that he wants a son (104); Aphrodite tells him that Hermes kidnapped her to provide him just that.
130–42. The last third of Aphrodite’s speech works on two levels. It ostensibly stresses the need to bring the two families into the social function of a proper wedding, which will include a large payment for her safety. Yet it primarily emphasizes her vulnerability and sexual availability.
145–54. Anchises’ reply shows his uncertainty. He doesn’t quite believe her, but he is too overwhelmed with desire to do anything other than act as if he does believe her. His words are framed as a conditional statement: if what you say is true, then let’s make love now (even if I die afterward if you really are a goddess). See Smith (1981: 55–57).
156–57. Aphrodite acts the shy virgin, modestly lowering her eyes and slowly letting herself be led to bed.
159–60. The mention of the ferocious animals killed by Anchises helps make him appear more in charge and manly, rather than the passive target of Aphrodite’s seduction.
162–65. Anchises, in undressing Aphrodite piece by piece, in effect symbolically strips her of her power until she appears as a naked human woman. In the hymn to Inanna (see the note to lines 84–90, above), the sequence of stripping the goddess occurs as Inanna reaches the seven gates leading down to the underworld. Inanna is forced to take off one item at each gate, until she is “naked and bowed low” (Wolkstein and Kramer 1983: 57–60; quotation, 60). Note that Aphrodite dresses while Anchises sleeps (170–71); only when she is again clothed does she reveal herself as a goddess (172–76).
167. This line immediately recalls that she is an immortal goddess different in nature from the human man she beds. Both goddess and man are “uncertain of the truth.” Anchises doesn’t know with whom he is having sex. Note that she does not provide even a false name, and he does not press her for it.
182. Aphrodite purposely frightens Anchises—just the effect she tried to avoid before.
188–90. Anchises fears that one bout with the love goddess could permanently drain him of his sexual energy and seed (see Giacomelli 1980: 16–19).
196–99. Aphrodite tells Anchises that he will have the son he prayed for. But she names that son Aeneas after her “terrible” (ainos) sorrow. He will be a constant reminder of her contact with mortality.
200–201. Anchises’ family is rich in men with divine beauty, which has attracted other gods.
202. The story of Ganymede would seem to be a positive example of a human who was granted immortality and eternal youth. Yet Ganymede has no choice in the matter—he was kidnapped—and his father, Tros, “grieved without end” (209) before learning the fate of his son and receiving a ransom of immortal horses. Though the exemplum ends happily with Tros rejoicing (217), Ganymede forever remains the adolescent cupbearer to the gods, never maturing into an adult man (Smith 1981: 72–74).
218. Tithonos’ story, unlike that of Ganymede, is unambiguously negative because his immortality comes with eternal aging. His immortal life is divided into three stages: a happy youth with Dawn (225–27), a celibate maturity with Dawn (228–32), and an eternal old age, paralyzed in solitary confinement (233–36). As Dawn’s husband in the Iliad (11.1) and Odyssey (5.1), Tithonos’ age isn’t mentioned. In a version later than the hymn, Tithonos turns into a cricket.
231. Tithonos consumes human bread and divine ambrosia because he is an ever-aging and powerless immortal.
237. Although Tithonos cannot move, his voice stays strong and persistent.
241. Because (in this hymn) only Zeus grants immortality, Aphrodite has no chance of having Anchises made her immortal husband. Zeus needs Anchises to stay mortal for Aphrodite to remain beaten—shamed and without the ability to infect other gods with desire for humans.
253–55. When the gods act on their desire for mortals, who age and die, it is considered shameful (Smith 1981: 40).
257. Anchises knows about the tree nymphs of Mount Ida (97–98). They are an appropriate choice to raise the son of a goddess and man because they exist between immortality and mortality. They mingle with the gods and eat divine food, but they die after a very long life.
262. This is the earliest known reference to the Sileni, wild animal-men who, like satyrs, are connected with drink and sex.
286–88. In some later versions, Anchises does boast and Zeus strikes him impotent, lame, blind, or dead.
This hymn follows the tradition of Aphrodite’s birth told in Hesiod’s Theogony (178–98): Ouranos (Sky) refused to let his children out of Gaia (Earth) after they were born, so Gaia asked her son Kronos to castrate his father. When Kronos did so, Ouranos’ genitals fell into the sea. Aphrodite was born from the white sea-foam (aphros) that rose up around the genitals. She first floats to Cythera and then lands on Cyprus. The longer Hymn to Aphrodite 5, however, states that she is Zeus’ daughter (81). In the Iliad, Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Dione (a minor goddess whose name is merely a feminine form of Zeus). In this poem, Aphrodite has emerged on Cyprus, where the Horai dress her. Aphrodite is decorated and displayed to the gods in much the same way as Hesiod’s Pandora, and they both “amaze” the gods with their beauty (cf. Theogony 588 and Aphrodite 6.17–18). See Loraux (1994: chap. 2) for more on this comparison.
14. When the Horai “adorned” Aphrodite, they literally “placed kosmos” on her. The Greek word kosmos means “decoration,” “adornment,” as well as “world,” “universe,” “order.”
20. This hymn provides direct evidence that some, if not all, of the hymns were performed in contests.
See the Hymn to Dionysos 1 for Dionysos’ birth story. Dionysos alters human beings through ecstasy, madness, or, as here, metamorphosis. The story of Dionysos and the pirates was popular and retold in numerous versions, including one in Euripides’ Cyclops. An Attic black figure kylix by Exekias, in the mid-sixth century B.C.E., portrays Dionysos in the ship with grape vines above and dolphins around.
6. The Tyrsenian pirates either are Etruscans (from Italy) or Pelasgians (the non-Hellenic people in Thrace, Athens, and the island of Lemnos). Both non-Greek groups had a reputation among Greeks for piracy. The “large” ship is literally described as “well-benched,” i.e., with many benches for rowing.
11–12. The pirates, believing Dionysos a prince, capture him for ransom or for sale into slavery (see the note to lines 28–29, below).
13. No ties can bind Hermes (4.409–10), who crosses boundaries, or Dionysos, who dissolves boundaries. In both hymns, the flexible boughs of slender willow immediately drop off the god.
15. Those who recognize and worship Dionysos are rewarded, while those who deny or are blind to his divinity are severely punished. This theme often recurs in the myths of Dionysos (see Euripides’ Bacchae). Here, the helmsman tries to stop the other pirates because he perceives that Dionysos is a major Olympian god: either Zeus himself, or Zeus’ son Apollo, or Zeus’ brother the sea god (19–20). All the other sailors end up dead or transformed into dolphins.
28–29. According to the captain, their captive might reach the ends of the world, wherever they could get the best price. Egypt or the island of Cyprus would be viewed by Etruscan sailors as particularly distant, and the Hyperboreans were a mythical people whose name means “beyond the north wind.”
35–42. Dionysos usually appears in literature and art with vines (38) and ivy (40).
55. The text is obscure or corrupt in addressing the helmsman.
The Hymn to Ares is strikingly different from all the other hymns in three ways: it contains five lines of solid epithets, connects Ares with the planet Mars (the Roman name for Ares), and contains a prayer for peace rather than for a successful song. A fifth-century C.E. date for the hymn’s composition helps explain these unusual elements (see West 1970), although composition as early as the third century B.C.E. is possible.
Ares usually represents all the destructive, bloodthirsty, and fatal aspects of war, while Athena is associated with the positive possibilities, such as defense of the city, righteous war, and victory. In myth, the other gods, including his parents Zeus and Hera, despise, outmaneuver, or beat Ares. This hymn, however, invokes an Ares with some Athena-like qualities: Athena is the city defender (11.1, 28.3) linked with Nike (Victory) and Themis (Law and Justice). Yet the hymn emphasizes manly strength (using six different words for “strong” alone). Ares is “mighty” (1, hupermenos, a word that means “exceedingly full of the strength and energy of the male life force”). The poet prays to the war god for “warrior strength” (11) to drive out his own evil and to “restrain” the “temper” (14, menos) that pushes him to war. He asks for “courage” to follow “peace” (16) instead of war. The poet calls on Ares’ extreme masculine strength to help him control his own menos. (In the Hymn to Aphrodite 5.188, Anchises asked Aphrodite not to make him amenos, “unmanned.”)
6–8. The “red orb” refers to the planet Mars. The seven planets, starting with the farthest from Earth, were believed to be Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, and the Moon, which would put Mars in the “third orbit” (Aristotle, On the Cosmos 2, 392A).
Artemis, mistress of wild animals, rules over hunting and the initiation of girls. Just as Apollo is god of opposites (sickness and healing), his sister Artemis is both virgin huntress and birth goddess. Throughout Asia Minor and Greece, women worshipped her with music, dance, and loud cries, as well as private prayers to survive childbearing. See Artemis 27 and Aphrodite 5.16–20 for more details.
3–5. The Meles river is just north of Smyrna, a large city on the coast of Asia Minor, north of the Ionic peninsula. Klaros, directly south of Smyrna and north of the important cult center of Artemis in Ephesus, had a temple to Apollo.
See Hymns to Aphrodite 5 and 6 for myths of Aphrodite.
4. Salamis is a city on Cyprus.
See Athena 28 and Aphrodite 5.8–15 for a fuller portrait of Athena.
Hera was a fertility goddess, protector of certain cities, and goddess of marriage. The hymn begins in a traditional manner by invoking Hera, but lacks the farewell to the goddess and the transition to another song at the end. This may indicate that we have only the beginning lines of a longer hymn.
5. This hymn and Aphrodite 5.44 acknowledge an equality between the queen and king of the gods. Hera sits on the golden throne. Hera’s status in actual worship was quite high. The “earliest and most important temples are dedicated to her” (Burkert 1985: 131). Yet most myths show Hera as subject to Zeus and unable to best him, even though she tries. In the Hymn to Apollo 3.337–51, Hera gives birth to the serpentine Typhon in order that he might overthrow Zeus. Many myths highlight her rage against Zeus’ infidelities and his production of children without her. In her anger, Hera persecutes Zeus’ other women, including those taken in rape, and the children that result.
This hymn is composed of two lines from the Hymn to Demeter 2 (1, 493) and a half line that is also found in the Alexandrian poet Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter (132; see Lombardo and Rayor 1988).
The Mother of the Gods or Great Mother was worshipped with wild, ecstatic music throughout the Mediterranean world. The Greeks commonly identified her with the Asiatic Cybele or with Rhea, mother of the Olympians, and sometimes with Demeter, the grain goddess.
Herakles, the most popular Greek hero, with cult centers throughout the Mediterranean, was worshipped as a hero and a god and prayed to as the “Helper” or “Savior.” His name means either “glory (kleos) of Hera” or “glory through Hera”—“he is simultaneously ‘glorious through Hera’ and ‘he through whom glory comes to Hera’” (Loraux 1990: 44).
Zeus made love to Alkmene disguised as her husband, Amphitryon, who came home later that night. Twins resulted: Herakles, son of Zeus, and Iphikles, son of Amphitryon. Hera hated Herakles, another product of Zeus’ infidelity. She sent snakes to kill him right after his birth. Later, Hera drove Herakles mad. In his madness, he killed his first wife, Megara, and their children. Seeking purification at Delphi for the murders, Herakles was instructed to complete twelve labors for Eurystheus, king of Argos, after which he would be deified.
His heroic adventures primarily consisted of making the world safe by slaying ferocious animals and monsters. In myth, he is portrayed as a glutton, drunkard, and libertine bedding fifty women in one night. Herakles represented the extreme in masculinity and heroic excess. He was stronger than ordinary men and had stronger appetites: the perfect hero for accomplishing impossible tasks, but not someone to invite home for dinner to meet the family. Myth describes Herakles as more than a man, but also as animal-like: he wore a lion cloak complete with head and was himself very hairy.
Herakles’ fate was inextricably tied to women, beginning with Hera. He was portrayed as a lover of women and a misogynist—“in more than one Greek city the exclusion of women figures among the specific traits of the cult of Herakles” (Loraux 1990: 25). In payment for a murder, Herakles had to serve the Lydian Queen Omphale, dressed as a woman and doing women’s chores, such as weaving. After his labors Herakles’ wife, Deianeira, unintentionally gave him a poisoned cloak, believing it a love charm that could win him back from the mistress he brought home with him (Sophocles’ Trachiniae). In agony from the fatal poison, Herakles burned himself alive on a funeral pyre. After a life of extreme suffering, and pleasure, Herakles was rewarded with immortality. Hera finally reconciled with Herakles after his apotheosis and married him to Hebe (Youth), her and Zeus’ daughter. Herakles breached all boundaries: he conquered cities, men, monsters, even death, yet he also experienced being a servant, a slave, and a woman.
Asklepios the doctor god, whose snake-entwined staff still symbolizes the medical profession, was a mortal hero who became a god. When the hero Asklepios became too good at his job and brought the dead back to life, Zeus killed him with a lightning bolt to restore the natural order. Then Asklepios was deified.
People came to his cult centers, such as the famous one at Epidauros, for healing through a process combining physical, psychiatric, and magical medicine. After offering sacrifices to Asklepios, the patient would undergo “incubation,” which consisted of sleeping in an underground chamber. The god was expected either to cure the person or to appear in a dream, usually in the form of a snake. Upon waking, the patient would tell the dream to a priest, who would interpret it and prescribe a course of action.
2. For Koronis, see Apollo 3.209–10, with note.
3. The Dotion plain is in Thessalia, south of Mount Olympos.
This is a short version of the nineteen-line Hymn to the Dioskouroi 33. The Dioskouroi, the paradigm of active young men, were worshipped as saviors in battle and in storms at sea. Saint Elmo’s fire, the electrical discharge sometimes seen on the masts of ships (and other projecting objects) during storms, signaled their arrival. The name “Dioskouroi” means “young men or sons of Zeus.” Zeus, in the form of a swan, raped Leda, who gave birth to two eggs; one held the twins Kastor and Polydeukes, and the other Helen and Klytemnestra. Some versions say that Kastor and his sister Klytemnestra are the mortal children of Leda’s husband, King Tyndareus of Sparta, while Polydeukes and Helen are the immortal children of Zeus.
3. Taygetos is the mountain range west of Sparta in the Peloponnesus.
5. “Tyndarids” means “offspring of Tyndareus.”
This is a short version of the Hymn to Hermes 4.
All but three hymns include the name of the deity in the first line, usually as the first word. By beginning with “Hermes’ dear son” instead of the name “Pan,” this hymn emphasizes Hermes’ role. The second half of the hymn celebrates Pan’s birth and introduction into the pantheon. For other birth narratives, see Apollo 3, Hermes 4, and Athena 28.
Pan, the ithyphallic goat god of flocks and wild places, was worshipped only locally in Arcadia, in central Peloponnesus, until the fifth century. According to Herodotos (6.105), the Athenians began worshipping Pan after the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C.E.. Before the battle, the Athenians sent a long-distance runner to ask the Spartans to help them fight the invading Persians. On his way over a mountain, the runner met Pan, who asked why the Athenians ignored his goodwill, although he had helped them before and would again. After the Athenians won the battle, they built a temple to Pan and worshipped him.
3. Pan is in constant movement in the first half of the hymn, first wandering alone in the wilds, then dancing with the mountain nymphs (19).
5. In this hymn, the nymphs, instead of the bard, invoke Pan and sing the whole story in the second part of the hymn. The nymphs, as liminal creatures in between humans and gods, are appropriate mediators of this unusual god (Haubold 2001).
15. In Hermes 4.512, Hermes invents Pan’s instrument, the panpipes or syrinx.
27–47. The nymphs sing the story of Pan’s birth and reception among the gods.
32. Hermes served as shepherd to the mortal man Dryops in order to marry his daughter, Dryope. “Dryops” (oak voice) is a kind of woodpecker; Dryope would be an oak spirit.
38. Pan causes some people, such as his mother, to flee in fear (panic) at the sight and sound of him. Others, such as all the gods, delight in him (41, 45, 47). Pan is the Greek word for “all” (47).
45. Hermes, “who gives joy and good fortune” (18.12), produces and reveals Pan (Haubold 2001).
46. For more on Dionysos, see Hymns to Dionysos 1, 7, and 26. He had a particularly close relationship with Pan.
48–49. The bard directly addresses Pan only here, at the end of the hymn.
Except for lame Hephaistos, all the Olympian gods appear perfect in beauty and form. Hephaistos is the fire and smith god. While famous mainly for metalworking, Hephaistos made the body of Pandora, the first woman (Hesiod, Theogony 571–72). In the Iliad, he is the son of Zeus and Hera; in the Theogony (927–28), Hera conceived him by herself out of anger at Zeus for giving birth to Athena. Athena and Hephaistos join together to civilize human beings by teaching them crafts and the use of fire.
See the Hymn to Apollo 3. Phoibos Apollo is the god of controlled music (as on the lyre), rather than the wild and ecstatic music of Pan and Dionysos (pipes and percussion).
1. Swans are frequently associated with Apollo and with music. The sound of wind through feathers in flight produces a kind of music.
2. The Peneios river runs through the Dotion plain in Thessalia, south of Mount Olympos.
An Olympian son of Kronos and Rhea, Poseidon won the sea as his portion in the early division in which Zeus received the sky and Hades the underworld. Poseidon, often portrayed with a trident, competed with Athena to be the patron deity of Athens. He offered water and she the olive tree. In many ways, Poseidon and Athena are opposites, as can be seen in the conflict between Poseidon and Athena’s representative, Odysseus, in the Odyssey. Poseidon, as the sea, represents the brute force and unpredictability of nature. Athena represents human cunning and manufacture—the ability to think and to mold nature into useful forms.
3. Helike and Aigai are neighboring towns in Achaea on the southern shore of the Gulf of Corinth. The other possible Aigai is in Euboea (see Apollo 3.32).
Zeus, the sky and weather god, usually depicted with lightning bolt in hand, rules the pantheon. Hesiod’s Theogony shows how Zeus took and maintained his power. Zeus conquered his own father, Kronos. Then he swallowed his first wife, Metis (Intelligence), to literally incorporate wisdom into himself and to prevent her from conceiving a son who could conquer him. His second wife, Themis, the goddess of justice and law, represents the nature of his rule. After a brief series of intervening goddesses, Zeus chose Hera for his last wife. All of the twelve Olympian deities are either his siblings or his children.
Hestia, hearth goddess, “represents not only the centre of the domestic sphere. Sealed in the ground, the circular hearth denotes the navel which ties the house to the earth. It is the symbol and pledge of fixity, immutability, and permanence” (Vernant 1983: 128). The hearth at Delphi (Pytho) was the spiritual center, the omphalos (navel), of the Greek world and the source of purifying fire. See Hestia and Hermes 29 and Aphrodite 5.21–32 for more on Hestia.
3. The Greeks used olive oil, perfumed for special occasions, on their hair.
5. Zeus, as god of the polis (city-state), frequently was worshipped with Hestia.
This hymn is composed of pieces from Hesiod’s Theogony: line 1 is close to Theogony 1, lines 2–5 are nearly the same as Theogony 94–97, and line 6 is close to Theogony 104.
See Apollo 3 and Zeus 23.
See Dionysos 1 and 7.
See the Artemis 9 and Aphrodite 5.16–20 for more details on Artemis.
15. The nine Muses and the three Graces (Charites) are the usual companions of Apollo as the god of lyre music and dance.
Athena was born from Zeus’ head, according to this hymn, fully armed. See also Athena 11 and Aphrodite 5.8–15.
4. The epithet “Tritogeneia,” used only of Athena, may mean “born on the third day.”
13. Even the sun stopped moving until Athena took off her armor.
Although the hearth goddess and the messenger god would seem to have little in common, Hestia and Hermes are joined as complementary deities directly involved in daily human life: “Because her fate is to reign, forever immobile, at the centre of the domestic sphere, Hestia implies, as her complement and her contrast, the swift-footed god who rules the realms of the traveller. To Hestia belongs the world of the interior, the enclosed, the stable, the retreat of the human group within itself; to Hermes, the outside world, opportunity, movement, interchange with others” (Vernant 1983: 130). See Hestia 24 and Aphrodite 5.21–32 for more on Hestia, and Hermes 4 and Pan 19 for Hermes.
5–6. Libations were offered to Hestia at the beginning and end of meals. Some people connect the myth of her birth, in which she was born first and last (see the note to Aphrodite 5.21–23), to the libation ritual.
7. At bedtime Hermes received the last libation. Hermes was the guardian of the house at night, the protector against night terrors and the sender of dreams.
According to Hesiod (Theogony 117), Gaia, Mother Earth, first came into being out of the Void (Khaos). She gave birth to Heaven (Ouranos, 17), mountains, and sea. Mating with Ouranos, she bore the Titans, the generation of gods before the Olympians.
The hymns to the Sun and the Moon (Selene 32) form a beautiful pair, similar in language and style. Although nearly absent in cult, Helios and Selene are sometimes grouped with the Olympian gods in pedimental sculpture. Euryphaessa (literally, “wide-shining one”) and Hyperion, a Titan son of Gaia and Ouranos, are the parents of Helios, Selene, and Eos (Dawn). In other versions, Theia is the mother of the three (Hesiod, Theogony 371). Helios was invoked in oaths and called on as witness.
1. Kalliope is the chief Muse.
15–16. This image is of the Sun driving his chariot through the sky all day until he reaches the Ocean at the edge of the world.
20. Demigods, the heroes whose deeds are sung in epic tales, are the mortal children born from the unions of gods and humans. Only this hymn and the following, clearly preludes to epic songs, end by promising to sing of their glory.
1. Only here is the Moon “long-winged.” Perhaps the poet pictures a winged goddess like Eos, or shadows or clouds around the moon.
8–10. Selene leaves the Ocean, driving her chariot through the sky all night.
11. Since the Greeks figured months from each new moon, the moon waxed full at midmonth.
15. Pandeia has no mythology; she is a representation of the moon herself.
See the notes on Dioskouroi 17, the short version of this hymn.
This five-line poem is found at the end of some manuscripts of the Hymns, although it is not a hymn to a god. Instead, it addresses all hosts (xenoi), reminding them of their sacred duty to provide hospitality (xenia, the guest-host relationship) to strangers or guests (xenoi).
2. Hera’s city is Cyme, on the Aeolian coast of Asia Minor, south of the island Lesbos.
5. The large Hermus river flows to the sea south of Cyme.