48 pages • 1 hour read
AnonymousHomeric Hymns
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Mortals’ Subjugation
Despite the Hymns’ fragmentary quality, their shared themes include shared motifs. One of these motifs is the subjugation of mortals to the will of the gods, which illustrates the intersection of mortal and immortal worlds. A fleeting and almost comic example of mortal subjugation appears in Hymn 5, when Aphrodite towers over her mortal lover Anchises and terrifies him, warning him not to brag of their romp lest Zeus smite him.
Mortals’ subjugation also appears in the story of Apollo deceiving the Cretan sailors by transforming himself into a dolphin. And the motif appears again when Dionysus, in Hymn 7, reestablishes the separation between mortals and immortals in an act of wrath: Angered that he has been taken prisoner by Etruscan pirates, he brutally murders many of the crew and turns some into dolphins—but he spares the helmsman who correctly inferred Dionysus’s divinity. The will of the gods observes a natural order that humans disrupt and are subjected to; this cosmic narrative from antiquity offers its own explanations for why the world functions as it does and why humans must behave in certain ways.
Food and Drink
When food and drink appear in the hymns, the sustenance is usually associated with either divinity or the boundary between divinity and humankind. It is therefore a motif under the theme of the intersection (and separation) of the mortal and immortal worlds.
Ambrosia, the food of the gods, grants all who consume it longevity and youth. Nymphs also eat ambrosia, and mortals can consume it as well, but its primary association is with the divine realm. The foil to ambrosia is meat, the consumption of which is exclusive to humans and which appears in the hymn to Hermes as the trickster god suffers his half-mortal cravings. Wine even has a double significance: It is both an emblem for Dionysus and the substance used for libations, the drinks poured out as offerings to the gods.
There is then the pomegranate seed that Hades tricks Persephone into eating before returning her to Olympus; because the seed is from the Underworld, it binds her to that realm forever, ensuring her annual return. While Hades and death are often associated with the pomegranate seed, so is Persephone, and the seed also symbolizes fertility and life. The seed’s dual symbolism is reflected in the balance between life and death established at the end of the hymn.
Apollo’s Lyre and Hermes’s Whip
The symbols of the lyre and whip embody themes of familial conflict and, eventually, harmony, as brothers Hermes and Apollo exchange the gifts in reconciliation and fraternity. After inventing the first lyre from a tortoise shell and reeds, Hermes bestows the lyre upon Apollo, granting him patronage over music. The lyre represents the harmonious relationship between Hermes and Apollo. Likewise, Apollo shows approval of Hermes’s addition to the pantheon by gifting him a whip and granting him patronage over herding. Despite Hermes stealing Apollo’s cattle, Apollo forgives his younger brother. The exchange of gifts between Hermes and Apollo symbolizes the truce of their relationship.
On its own, the lyre offers more significance: While playing the lyre, one often recounts the lineage of the immortals, further solidifying the order of the gods’ relations.
Aegis Shield
The aegis shield is a goat-skinned shield shared between Zeus and Athena. It bears the head of a Gorgon, an Underworld-dwelling woman with hair made of snakes and whose gaze turns others into stone. The epithet “aegis-holder” refers both to Zeus and to Athena. The aegis shield represents the shared respect between Zeus and Athena, specifically in times of war and combat. Because the shield symbolizes this bond, it carries a theme of familial harmony (so different from the Familial and Intergenerational Conflict that marked Zeus’s relationship with his own father.
Related Titles
By Anonymous
