Product Description

Composed for recitation at festivals, these 33 songs were written in honour of the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greek pantheon. They recount the key episodes in the lives of the gods, and dramatise the moments when they first appear before mortals. Together they offer the most vivid picture we have of the Greek view of the relationship between the divine and human worlds.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #107693 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
Originally attributed to Homer because of their style and quality, the hymns are now thought to have been written by of a number of different poets of the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Jules Cashford is a writer and lecturer on Mythology. She is the author of The Myth of the Goddess (Arkana, 1991) & The Myth of the Moon (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, forthcoming) Dr Nicholas Richardson is a Fellow in English at Merton College, Oxford

Customer Reviews

Fascinating, accessible collection
Another appealing offering from Penguin Classics, _The Homeric Hymns_ is a collection of ancient poems dedicated to the Greek pantheon. A useful but occasionally slight introduction, obviously aimed at the general reader, discusses the composition and context of the hymns; more specific detail is offered in the extensive footnotes, which explore recurring imagery and the tales that are alluded to. The translation itself is wonderfully lucid, bringing the hymns to resonant life for the modern audience without compromising their tone. A fascinating insight into ancient Greek religious practice, and a wonderfully varied collection of poetry. Read them aloud...

Beginners Best
This Penguin Classic edition of the Homeric Hymns, one of four recent translations, is easily the most accessible for readers looking to find a way into Greek literature.

The introduction by Richardson, who has written extensively on the Hymn to Demeter, is cut into sections on purpose, composition, dating, theme, style and, uniquely, later influence. He makes the case that the poems are introductions (prooimia) to epic pieces sung at festivals, always sung rather than read, and not really to be sung in isolation.
His discussion on theme highlights the piecemeal assembly of the hymns. They all share an announcement of their subject-god, a line of praise and final prayer for something in return; then generic theme-types on the birth of the god, their introduction the Pantheon and such are added depending on the degree of detail the hymnist felt appropriate.
Both Richardson and Cashford emphasise that the hymns change in mood or tone depending on the god being sung. So in the Hymn to Pan we can visualise a sprightly, felicitous god in the written format, touching the page briefly only words at a time before skipping over to new stanzas. Similarly, Cashford matches Hermes' trickster character (and the general comic tone of his major hymn) with colloquial, chatty speech; compare Cashford, who writes openly in free-verse, with Crudden, the hexameter purist, in this fragment from Hermes (4):

Cashford: `Old man, digging your plants
with hunched shoulders,
you're going to have
a whole lot of wine
when all these bear fruit
just so long as you obey me...'

Crudden: `Old man who dig at your plants with shoulders curved in a stoop,
Wine will be yours in plenty, whenever all these bear fruit.'

The hymns themselves are great fun to read, and perhaps it's because of this the authors decided against very full explanatory notes. The notes here are more a glossary of names and places for the uninitiated and readers already acquainted with the classical world will find they add little to their understanding of the hymns. For this, see Crudden (2001), which I recommend as a critical complement to this good pop edition.