The Homeric Hymn to Hermes is the longest surviving hymn from early Greece, our fullest source for the god Hermes, and an entertaining narrative of theft, invention, cheekiness, and learning to get along. This study contains a new text of the poem, based on advances in our understanding of its transmission, and a commentary which brings together a range of methodologies to address points of linguistic difficulty, poetic technique, and cultural background. The introduction discusses the possible context for the first performance of the hymn, and makes an original argument about the hymnist's remarkable approach to praise and to the epic tradition. This book will therefore be an essential point of reference for students and scholars interested not only in the Hymn to Hermes but in Greek literature and religion.

The Hymn to Hermes, while surely the most amusing of the so-called Homeric Hymns, also presents an array of challenging problems. In just 580 lines, the newborn god invents the lyre and sings a hymn to himself, travels from Cyllene to Pieria to steal Apollo’s cattle, organizes a feast at the river Alpheios where he serves the meat of two of the stolen animals, cunningly defends his innocence, and is finally reconciled to Apollo, to whom he gives the lyre in exchange for the cattle. This book provides the first detailed commentary devoted specifically to this unusual poem since Radermacher’s 1931 edition. The commentary pays special attention to linguistic, philological, and interpretive matters. It is preceded by a detailed introduction that addresses the Hymn’s ideas on poetry and music, the poem’s humour, the Hymn’s relation to other archaic hexameter literature both in thematic and technical aspects, the poem’s reception in later literature, its structure, the issue of its date and place of composition, and the question of its transmission. The critical text, based on F. Càssola’s edition, is equipped with an apparatus of formulaic parallels in archaic hexameter poetry as well as possible verbal echoes in later literature.

This book is specifically designed for upper-level students of these major narrative works of early Greek poetry.

Bryn Mawr Commentaries provide clear, concise, accurate, and consistent support for students making the transition from introductory and intermediate texts to the direct experience of ancient Greek and Latin literature. They assume that the student will know the basics of grammar and vocabulary and then provide the specific grammatical and lexical notes that a student requires to begin the task of interpretation. Hackett Publishing Company is the exclusive distributor of the Bryn Mawr Commentaries in North America, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

The Homeric Hymns have survived for two and a half millennia because of their captivating stories, beautiful language, and religious significance. Well before the advent of writing in Greece, they were performed by traveling bards at religious events, competitions, banquets, and festivals. These thirty-four poems invoking and celebrating the gods of ancient Greece raise questions that humanity still struggles with—questions about our place among others and in the world. Known as "Homeric" because they were composed in the same meter, dialect, and style as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, these hymns were created to be sung aloud. In this superb translation by Diane J. Rayor, which deftly combines accuracy and poetry, the ancient music of the hymns comes alive for the modern reader. Here is the birth of Apollo, god of prophecy, healing, and music and founder of Delphi, the most famous oracular shrine in ancient Greece. Here is Zeus, inflicting upon Aphrodite her own mighty power to cause gods to mate with humans, and here is Demeter rescuing her daughter Persephone from the underworld and initiating the rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries. This updated edition incorporates twenty-eight new lines in the first Hymn to Dionysos, along with expanded notes, a new preface, and an enhanced bibliography. With her introduction and notes, Rayor places the hymns in their historical and aesthetic context, providing the information needed to read, interpret, and fully appreciate these literary windows on an ancient world. As introductions to the Greek gods, entrancing stories, exquisite poetry, and early literary records of key religious rituals and sites, the Homeric Hymns should be read by any student of mythology, classical literature, ancient religion, women in antiquity, or the Greek language.

to alter a phrase or formula when repeating it again indicates that he did not compose orally although he makes use of the tradition.