In the ten years since the first edition of this book appeared, the Homeric Hymns have only increased in popularity among readers and scholars. In addition to some new reading recommendations and minor corrections, the second edition has revisions to the Hymn to Dionysos 1, including twenty-eight new lines. The Hymn to Dionysos 1 once was one of the longer hymns, at 411 lines; the new fragments help to reveal the story of Hera’s acceptance of Dionysos on Mount Olympos.
The Hymn to Dionysos 7 begins with “I will remember,” and the Hymn to Apollo 3 adds, “I will remember and not forget.” Altogether or singly, the hymns are worth remembering, particularly along with Homer or Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns provide an excellent addition to mythology, religion, gender, literature, and civilization courses because of their short length, accessible narratives, general interest, and connections to other classical and modern works.
As quick introductions to Greek gods, the short hymns immediately reveal some of the complexities and subtleties in Greek thought. For example, the Iliad portrays Ares, the god of war, as utterly bloodthirsty. In the Hymn to Ares, however, he is also the god who grants the courage for peace:
But you, Blessed One,
give me courage to stay within the gentle laws of peace,
fleeing enemy battle and violent death. (8.15–17)
The Hymn to Dionysos 7 functions as a brief introduction to Euripides’ Bacchae, regarding Dionysos’ demeanor, attributes, and double aspect as beneficent or deadly depending on human recognition of his divine self. Since Ovid’s Metamorphoses (3.511–733) combines this hymn and the Bacchae, the three works illustrate how authors borrowed and adapted myths in antiquity.
As in Hesiod’s creation tale, Theogony, the short Hymn to Aphrodite 6 and Hymn to Athena 28 focus on these goddesses’ double or unusual births:
From his august head, cunning Zeus
himself gave birth to her, born in warlike armor
of gleaming gold. Awe seized all the gods watching.
She sprang quickly from his immortal head
and stood in front of Zeus who bears the aegis,
shaking her sharp spear. (28.4–9)
Paired with the Athenian black figure amphora image of fully armed Athena stepping out of Zeus’ head, this hymn helps us remember the attributes of Zeus’ “brain child,” the goddess of wisdom. Like fine wines with distinctive foods, the hymns add value in pairings with other ancient literature.
While the entire collection of hymns is essential reading in mythology courses, the addition of one or two of the four longer hymns can enrich other courses. For example, ancient religion and Greek civilization courses benefit from studying the Hymn to Apollo 3 for the founding of Delphi and the Hymn to Demeter 2 for the Thesmophoria and the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Hymn to Demeter 2 and the Hymn to Aphrodite 5 are essential reading in women in antiquity courses. For those interested in love poetry, the Hymn to Aphrodite 5 makes a fascinating comparison to the erotic poetry of Sappho, Anakreon, and Archilochos. A Sappho fragment poignantly expresses the human passion, aging, and mortality central to the Hymn to Aphrodite’s story of Tithonos (5.218–38):
For they say rosy-armed Dawn in love
went to the ends of earth holding Tithonos,
beautiful and young, but in time gray old age
seized even him with an immortal wife.(Constantine et al. 2010: 92)
Before studying Homer’s Iliad, reading the shorter narrative of the Hymn to Aphrodite 5 introduces issues such as conflict among the gods, divine interference in human lives, and the ethical construct stated in Seth Schein’s The Mortal Hero: people’s “characteristic blend of responsibility and lack of ultimate power” (23).
More than the other hymns, the Hymn to Demeter 2—the story of Persephone’s kidnapping by the Lord of the Dead—is particularly versatile, in its recognition value, richness, and sheer beauty. This earliest version of the myth is far more complex than simply an explanation of the seasons. Demeter’s relationship with human beings is complicated. She suffers like a human when she loses her child yet is unsympathetic to Queen Metaneira’s fearful cry as Demeter roasts her baby in the fire. What does Demeter’s sojourn with the people of Eleusis, told only in this hymn, add to the story? Does her experience among humans, deceptive and potentially fatal as it is, lead to her eventual bounty, as Helene Foley (1994) suggests? Demeter is willing to kill off the human race to regain her daughter yet returns fertility and grants salvation through the Eleusinian Mysteries.
The Hymn to Demeter 2 helps illuminate the daily life of women in ancient Greece. We do not tend to associate marriage with death, while Greek thought, literature, and ritual closely connect them. For Demeter, Persephone’s marriage to Hades is her closest experience with death, since she cannot initially or fully retrieve Persephone. The marriage of Hades and Persephone, frequently retold and referenced, became a motif of marrying death. Girls married in their young teens, and “women who give birth before the age of seventeen have a higher mortality rate than older women” (Demand 1994: 102). Infant mortality was high as well. A funeral could indeed follow swiftly after a wedding, transforming “the melody / of weddings to the sound of wailing dirges” (Rayor 1991: 124). In addition, wedding and funeral rites, in which women played a crucial role, share many attributes. The bride and the corpse were washed, dressed, anointed, and either veiled (bride) or shrouded (corpse). Both journeyed to a new home, led by a procession of family and friends carrying torches, with song and dance, blessings, gifts, and a feast (Rehm 1994: 29).
Feminist theory, explored through selected articles and modern poetry, can deepen readings of the hymn as well. For example, Nanci DeBloois’s “Rape, Marriage, or Death? Gender Perspectives in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter” provides a clear feminist analysis and profound insight. According to the male deities Zeus, Hades, and Helios, this was a traditional marriage, arranged between the father and the bridegroom. According to Demeter, Persephone, and Hekate, however, it was an abduction and rape. The Persephone and Hades poems in Louise Glück’s Averno also explore gendered perspectives. In “Persephone the Wanderer,”
Persephone is having sex in hell.
Unlike the rest of us, she doesn’t know
what winter is, only that
she is what causes it. (2007: 17)
In this version, Glück sees the story of Persephone “as an argument between the mother and the lover— / the daughter is just meat” (19).
Caroline A. Perkins’s article “Persephone’s Lie in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter” and Harryette Mullen’s poem “Miss Persephone” explore Persephone’s story to her mother about how she came to ingest that pomegranate seed. Did Hades use it like a date-rape drug, “secretly slipping it to her,” or compel her “by force to eat, most unwillingly,” as Persephone tells her mother? The hymn’s narrative says at 371–74:
But he gave her
a honey-sweet pomegranate seed to eat,
secretly slipping it to her, so she would not remain
with holy, dark-robed Demeter forever.
While Persephone says at 406–13:
Indeed I will tell you, Mother, the whole truth.
When Hermes, the swift runner, came to me
from my father, son of Kronos, and the other gods
to bring me from Erebos, so you could see me
and give up anger and dread wrath against the gods,
I leapt with joy, but secretly Kronos’ other son
put into me a pomegranate seed, honey-sweet food,
compelling me by force to eat, most unwillingly.
According to Mullen, Persephone knew what she was doing and lied to her mother, claiming “technical virginity: / ‘I only swallowed his seeds’” (1981: 31):
So now you lead a double life,
you two-faced hussy.
In spring you do the fake virgin act
to please your ma, who pretends to believe it.
But in the dark cold months of winter
you heat the sheets of Hades
when your lusty lover
takes his share.
A surprising interpretation indeed, yet based on the hymn. Mullen’s “Miss Persephone” also illustrates how myths change, granting us license to join in the conversation. In my husband’s classroom, his students explored these three scenarios: Would Persephone be unhappy with her time split between mother and husband? Before they reach the final compromise, whereby Persephone will split each year between Hades and Demeter, what would a family meeting or therapy session with Zeus, Demeter, and Persephone discover? What might any of the four major characters write in a letter to one of the others?
Even versions that veer far from the myth, such as the film Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (2010), in which the child, a son, rescues his kidnapped mother from Hades, can draw us back to the source. Is this merely a reversal of mother and child to fit the young adult genre? Or is Percy Jackson playing Demophon, the son Demeter tries to steal into immortality, who could be more powerful than Zeus and be able to cross the boundaries of death and return?
The Hymn to Helios 31 and the Hymn to Selene 32 state in their last lines that they were meant as preludes before epic tales. Let us continue to read and remember the Homeric Hymns as introductions to a range of ancient and modern literature and topics.