Year: 1984
Type: article
Abstract: T HOMERIC HYMN to Hermes, one of the four longer poems of the corpus, tells the story of Hermes' conception, birth, and inauguration into the Olympic pantheon after his first two mischief-filled days of life. Almost immediately after his birth, the infant springs up from his cradle, intent on stealing the cattle of Apollo (22).1 On the threshold of his mother's cave, however, he meets a tortoise, whom he greets politely and quickly dispatches. Then, using her shell, he invents the lyre, and composes a song to its music. The episode is described in some detail (30-61), as if the poet, like his young subject, had been diverted from his main purpose by this chance encounter with the animal. But the narration then returns to the god's original goal, as Hermes places the new toy in his cradle and sets off once again after Apollo's cattle. This time he steals the animals and sacrifices two of them to the twelve gods before returning home to await Apollo's discovery and anger. The remainder of the hymn deals with the inevitable confrontation between Apollo and his younger brother, and the final resolution of their conflict. The myth of Hermes' trickery was a popular one, and several versions existed in antiquity. But the other accounts of which we hear either omit the tortoise scene altogether and focus entirely on the theft of the cattle, or place the cattle theft and sacrifice before the invention of the lyre. Thus the Hesiodic version describes the adult Hermes' theft of the cattle and his subsequent encounter with a man
Author: Susan C. Shelmerdine
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1587478636