Homeric Hymns
A collection of thirty-three hexameter hymns to Greek gods, attributed in antiquity to Homer and mostly dated by modern scholars to the seventh and sixth centuries BC; four long narrative hymns (Demeter, Apollo, Hermes, Aphrodite) and short invocations to the rest of the pantheon, preserving variants such as Hera's solitary birth of Typhaon. Read in Evelyn-White's translation.
Why this wins its question: Lists which hymn addresses which god by number and first line, and points to the variants inside the collection that contradict Hesiod, where a summary page only says "hymns attributed to Homer".
Key takeaways
- "Homeric" is an ancient attribution, not an authorship; the poems span centuries.
- Four long hymns carry whole myths (Persephone, Delos and Delphi, the lyre, Anchises); the rest are invocations.
- The blind singer of Chios (HH3 172) is the one self-portrait in the collection.
- The Hymn to Apollo's Hera-born Typhaon is a primary variant against Hesiod, and this corpus records both.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The collection consists of thirty-three hymns (and one epigram) in praise of Greek deities, retelling a god's birth, arrival on Olympus or founding of a cult; in antiquity they were generally attributed to Homer, while modern scholarship dates most of them to the seventh and sixth centuries BC, with some later, the Hymn to Ares perhaps as late as the fifth century AD.
Four hymns are full narratives. The Hymn to Demeter tells the rape of Persephone by "Aidoneus ... given to him by all-seeing Zeus", the compromise of a third of the year below, and Demeter's founding of the Eleusinian mysteries, "awful mysteries which no one may in any way transgress or pry into or utter" (HH2 1–3; 445–447; 470–482). The Hymn to Apollo has Leto bear him "in rocky Delos" (HH3 14–18; 25–29) and Apollo kill the she-dragon at Pytho and found the Delphinian cult (HH3 300–304; 495). The Hymn to Hermes has the newborn god make the first lyre from a tortoise and sing of his own begetting (HH4 20–59). The Hymn to Aphrodite tells "the deeds of golden Aphrodite the Cyprian, who stirs up sweet passion in the gods" (HH5 1–5).
The singer describes himself once: at Delos he asks the maidens to say, if a stranger asks who is the sweetest singer, "He is a blind man, and dwells in rocky Chios: his lays are evermore supreme", and promises to carry their fame "as far as I roam over the earth to the well-placed cities of man" (HH3 165–176).
The short hymns cover the pantheon and beyond: Ares "defence of Olympus" (HH8 1), Artemis (HH9, HH27), Aphrodite (HH6, HH10), Athena (HH11, HH28), Hera "whom Rhea bare ... sister and wife of loud-thundering Zeus" (HH12 1), the Mother of the gods (HH14), Heracles who "now lives happily in the glorious home of snowy Olympus" (HH15), Asclepius (HH16), the Dioscuri (HH17, HH33), Pan "with his goat's feet and two horns" (HH19), Hephaestus (HH20), Poseidon (HH22), Zeus "chiefest among the gods and greatest" (HH23), Hestia (HH24, HH29), the Muses (HH25), Dionysus (HH26), Earth (HH30), Helios (HH31) and the Moon (HH32).
The hymns record variants other texts lack. The first hymn lists five claimed birthplaces of Dionysus, "but all these lie", placing it on Nysa "far off in Phoenice" (HH1 1–9). The Hymn to Apollo makes Typhaon the child of Hera alone, borne in anger at Athena's birth from Zeus's head and given to the she-dragon of Pytho (HH3 305–355), where Hesiod's Typhoeus is the son of Earth and Tartarus (Theog. 820–822).
The form is fixed: a hymn opens by naming its god ("I begin to sing of rich-haired Demeter", HH2 1; "Muse, sing of Hermes", HH4 1) and closes by passing to the next song, "And now I will remember you and another song also" (HH2 495), the formula that made them preludes to recitation.
Questions answered
- Did Homer write the Homeric Hymns?
- The collection consists of thirty-three hymns (and one epigram) in praise of Greek deities, retelling a god's birth, arrival on Olympus or founding of a cult; in antiquity they were generally attributed to Homer, while modern scholarship dates most of them to the seventh and sixth centuries BC, with some later, the Hymn to Ares perhaps as late as the fifth century AD. source
- How many Homeric Hymns are there?
- The collection consists of thirty-three hymns (and one epigram) in praise of Greek deities, retelling a god's birth, arrival on Olympus or founding of a cult; in antiquity they were generally attributed to Homer, while modern scholarship dates most of them to the seventh and sixth centuries BC, with some later, the Hymn to Ares perhaps as late as the fifth century AD. source
- Which are the long Homeric Hymns?
- Four hymns are full narratives. The Hymn to Demeter tells the rape of Persephone by "Aidoneus ... given to him by all-seeing Zeus", the compromise of a third of the year below, and Demeter's founding of the Eleusinian mysteries, "awful mysteries which no one may in any way transgress or pry into or utter" (HH2 1–3; 445–447; 470–482). The Hymn to Apollo has Leto bear him "in rocky Delos" (HH3 14–18; 25–29) and Apollo kill the she-dragon at Pytho and found the Delphinian cult (HH3 300–304; 495). The Hymn to Hermes has the newborn god make the first lyre from a tortoise and sing of his own begetting (HH4 20–59). The Hymn to Aphrodite tells "the deeds of golden Aphrodite the Cyprian, who stirs up sweet passion in the gods" (HH5 1–5). source
- Which gods have a Homeric Hymn?
- The short hymns cover the pantheon and beyond: Ares "defence of Olympus" (HH8 1), Artemis (HH9, HH27), Aphrodite (HH6, HH10), Athena (HH11, HH28), Hera "whom Rhea bare ... sister and wife of loud-thundering Zeus" (HH12 1), the Mother of the gods (HH14), Heracles who "now lives happily in the glorious home of snowy Olympus" (HH15), Asclepius (HH16), the Dioscuri (HH17, HH33), Pan "with his goat's feet and two horns" (HH19), Hephaestus (HH20), Poseidon (HH22), Zeus "chiefest among the gods and greatest" (HH23), Hestia (HH24, HH29), the Muses (HH25), Dionysus (HH26), Earth (HH30), Helios (HH31) and the Moon (HH32). source
- Who is the blind man of Chios?
- The singer describes himself once: at Delos he asks the maidens to say, if a stranger asks who is the sweetest singer, "He is a blind man, and dwells in rocky Chios: his lays are evermore supreme", and promises to carry their fame "as far as I roam over the earth to the well-placed cities of man" (HH3 165–176). source