'With fair-tressed Demeter, the sacred goddess, my
song begins, With herself and her slim-ankled daughter,
whom Aidoneus once Abducted...' Most people are
familiar, at least by repute, with the two great epics
of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, but few are aware
that other poems survive that were attributed to Homer
in ancient times. The Homeric Hymns are now known to be
the work of various poets working in the same tradition,
probably during the seventh and sixth centuries BC. They
honour the Greek gods, and recount some of the most
attractive of the Greek myths. Four of them (Hymns 2-5)
stand out by reason of their length and quality. The
Hymn to Demeter tells what happened when Hades, lord of
the dead, abducted Persephone, Demeter's daughter. The
Hymn to Apollo describes Apollo's birth and the
foundation of his Delphic oracle. In the Hymn to Hermes
Apollo's cattle are stolen by a felonious infant -
Hermes, god of thieves. In the Hymn to Aphrodite the
goddess of love herself becomes infatuated with a mortal
man, the Trojan prince Ankhises. ABOUT THE SERIES: For
over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made
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further study, and much more. |
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