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We're making a transition this week moving
from the grand epic poetry that we saw in

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Homer and Hesiod into a different kind of
writing.

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We're going to have a look at the Homeric
hymns.

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Now, these hymns are so-called because
they're hymns.

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In Greek, the term hymnos, means a song in
praise of a divinity.

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They're called Homeric Hymns because
they're written in a Homeric style and

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they're actually claimed to be written by
Homer.

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But what we think is much more likely is
that these hymns are written by schools of

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people that follow Homer, and that write
hymns in his style.

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And as, as a kind of homage to him, they
go ahead and claim that Homer wrote their

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story.
It's unlikely to have been and an attempt

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to pass, try to pass off a kind of
plagiarized copy, to claim Homeric

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lineage.
Instead, it's just a claim by the author

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that what I'm writing is done in praise of
Homer and a way of showing honor to him.

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Now, the, the subject of the praise of any
of these individual divinities is the god

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to whom the hymn is given.
Individual hymns honor individual

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divinities.
We're going to get to know these

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divinities now and hear about what their
lives are like.

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They're a little different than yours and
mine.

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In the Theogony, we had a early precursor
of this in our course.

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The opening of Hesiod's four recall, is a
long story in praise of the muses where

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Hesiod starts off, sings, sings about
them.

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Tells about his personal relationship with
them.

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Sings about their specific ways of being
in the world.

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And then, he closes off his opening to the
Theogony with a praise of the muses

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saying, you know, goodbye, muses, and I
hope you remember me find fondly and

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kindly.
We'll see that these are qualities that

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show up in these other Homeric Hymns as
well.

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So, we've already kind of seen an example
of this genre in the introductory portion

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of the Praise of the Muses that starts off
Hesiod's Theogony.

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For what we are going to be reading in
this class, just two of what survived from

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a couple of dozen different Hymns that
survived from the antiquity.

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We are going to focus on just two of
these.

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The Homeric Hymn to Apollo and the Homeric
Hymn to Demeter.

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Now,4 you'll see from the large collection
of Hymns out there, there is more than one

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hymn to Apollo and there's more than one
hymn to Demeter.

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We're only in our class, we're going to
focus on the long extended ones.

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The short one, the short hymn to Demeter
and the short hymn to Apollo, actually

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very short.
You'll see clearly which ones we're

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talking about, we're reading the longer
ones.

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These hymns are two particularly rich
ones, particularly long and extended ones

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that survived from the corpus and give us
a window into common themes of this genre

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of writing.
Now, in the Hyms, we are going to see an

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exhibited,
A kind of style that will be reminiscent

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of some of the things we have seen in the
epic poetry of Homer and Hesiod.

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But some things are a little bit
different,

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Where they do indeed use the same meter
that Homer and Hesiod did, this dactylic

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hexameter.
There is also a similar kind of diction in

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the Greek.
We mentioned when we looked at Homer that,

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actually, Homer's language that he uses is
a little strange.

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It's pastiche drawn from lots of different
dialects around ancient Greeks, around the

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ancient Greeks.
Also, with these Homeric Hymns, they'll

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draw from that same kind of Homeric
register of, of, of connect dry

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connections between the many different
aspects of ancient Greek.

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We'll see some stylistic measures that are
kind of similar, too.

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They'll be uses of similes, some
digressions and pieces of this that we'll

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note as we go along.
There are narrative arts present in these

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hymns, some use of narrative in that
Homeric way that introduces us to really

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intense stories that are happening to our
characters.

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But oftentimes, we will see the narrative
is used more like the way that it say

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Hesiod uses narrative, as one device among
many to structure the kind of saying that

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a person wants to make,
The kind of engagement that a person wants

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to make with the material.
None of our poets are going to feel wedded

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to having to tell us some clean clear
linear story.

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They're just going to get all this good
stuff about this god in there that they

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possibly can.
We'll see some interruptions along the

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way.
Some digression,

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Insome back and forth movements in the
narrative, some non-linear things.

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Also Hyms like to use lists in that way
that Hesiod did.

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We'll see long lists of places or people
or events and those lists are again,

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characteristic of same kind of impulses
that drove them in Hesiod's case.

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An idea of total inclusiveness trying to
make sure everything is, is told.

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It would have also been some qualities of
the virtuosity of the poet to demonstrate,

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look, I can even sing this long list of
proper names from memory.

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And all this is going to enter into the
context of what the lists are all about.

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One theme that is common that we are going
to see in the stories, just like we did

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with Hesiod, lots of different traditions
are going to be being sewn together right

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before our eyes.
The poet will make reference to places

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that claim some direct linkage to the god
that we're studying.

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Say, they have a temple that exists in
their town.

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Lots of places might have temples that
exist to the god that we're interested in.

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What typically happens in a hymn is that
all of these places get some kind of

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calling-out in the story.
They get pulled out and fronted so that

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the people who have the temple to Apollo
or to Demeter or whoever the god might be

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in the hymn, have a chance to see their
own name of their town represented in the

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story.
They're going to operate according to

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different kinds of techniques then some of
the things that we've seen that we're

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going to have some direct address where we
actually talk directly to the god itself.

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We're going to have lots of praise so lots
of things that come out to tell us how

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great and grand this god is, sometimes
reliving past great things that this god

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has done.
We'll have some narrative elements that

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come in.
At the end after we're done, we're going

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to have a goodbye where the poet says,
please remember me fondly, divinity.

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I have always been nice to you, and now
also try to be nice to me.

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Asking for a kind of divine favor at the
end.

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We're going to see themes.
Characteristic and common across these

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different hymns.
One theme that comes out very strongly is

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a sense of actually getting to know the
god.

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It's like you're standing. you know,
Right here next to the divinity.

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Hello, Apollo, we're going to get a chance
to learn what it's like to be you.

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And what we're going to find out is that
some things that we might think in our

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standard intuition about the gods' lives
are actually not quite what a god's life

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is really like.
The god, first of all, is going to be

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born.
Here is Demeter.

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She's looking over us and keeping an eye
on us. The gods are going to be born.

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These gods didn't exist for all time, they
actually have a moment when they're born

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similarly to what we saw in Hesiod's
Theogony.

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Their lives are not simple and
straightforward. Typically, there's some

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kind of struggle.
Maybe they have to find a place to be

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born.
They have to find a place to live.

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They want to try to have temple.
Finding, they want to try to find some

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place on earth they can call their own
house and that requires some work.

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They have to convince people to build a
temple for them.

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They have to find an appropriate spot.
They suffer oftentimes some kind of pain

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or isolation as they are trying to make
their way to find these spots.

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They're also trying to make sure they
secure areas of their purview, so they

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have some exclusive claim over certain
kinds of things in the universe.

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Apollo is going to have a, a claim over
music, prophecy, medicine, the sun and

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archery.
Demeter is going to have a special claim

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over grain and fertility.
Finding what these things are and working

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them out with respect to the rest of the
divine family is going to require some

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doing.
It's going to take some negotiations and

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some moments to settle in.
Part of what this sense of belonging is

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going to be for these gods is they're
going to have to find, you and me, people

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like us, human beings, who are going to do
nice things for them, in, worship, and in

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ritual.
Gods, it turns out, like it, when you and

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I, worship them.
The ancient Greek gods really enjoy that

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and trying to secure a situation in which
they're going to get the kind of rituals

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and rites that they like is something that
is definitely built into the lives of the

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gods as portrayed in these Homeric hymns.
The ritual background is very important

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and we're going to focus in on that in the
next lecture.