ENDNOTES:
(1) ll. 1-9 are preserved by Diodorus Siculus iii. 66. 3; ll.
10-21 are extant only in M.
(2) Dionysus, after his untimely birth from Semele, was sewn
into the thigh of Zeus.
(3) sc. Semele. Zeus is here speaking.
(4) The reference is apparently to something in the body of the
hymn, now lost.
(5) The Greeks feared to name Pluto directly and mentioned him
by one of many descriptive titles, such as 'Host of Many':
compare the Christian use of O DIABOLOS or our 'Evil One'.
(6) Demeter chooses the lowlier seat, supposedly as being more
suitable to her assumed condition, but really because in her
sorrow she refuses all comforts.
(7) An act of communion -- the drinking of the potion here
described -- was one of the most important pieces of ritual
in the Eleusinian mysteries, as commemorating the sorrows of
the goddess.
(8) Undercutter and Woodcutter are probably popular names (after
the style of Hesiod's 'Boneless One') for the worm thought
to be the cause of teething and toothache.
(9) The list of names is taken -- with five additions -- from
Hesiod, "Theogony" 349 ff.: for their general significance
see note on that passage.
(10) Inscriptions show that there was a temple of Apollo
Delphinius (cp. ii. 495-6) at Cnossus and a Cretan month
bearing the same name.
(11) sc. that the dolphin was really Apollo.
(12) The epithets are transferred from the god to his altar
'Overlooking' is especially an epithet of Zeus, as in
Apollonius Rhodius ii. 1124.
(13) Pliny notices the efficacy of the flesh of a tortoise
against withcraft. In "Geoponica" i. 14. 8 the living
tortoise is prescribed as a charm to preserve vineyards from
hail.
(14) Hermes makes the cattle walk backwards way, so that they
seem to be going towards the meadow instead of leaving it
(cp. l. 345); he himself walks in the normal manner, relying
on his sandals as a disguise.
(15) Such seems to be the meaning indicated by the context,
though the verb is taken by Allen and Sikes to mean, 'to be
like oneself', and so 'to be original'.
(16) Kuhn points out that there is a lacuna here. In l. 109 the
borer is described, but the friction of this upon the
fireblock (to which the phrase 'held firmly' clearly
belongs) must also have been mentioned.
(17) The cows being on their sides on the ground, Hermes bends
their heads back towards their flanks and so can reach their
backbones.
(18) O. Muller thinks the 'hides' were a stalactite formation in
the 'Cave of Nestor' near Messenian Pylos, -- though the
cave of Hermes is near the Alpheus (l. 139). Others suggest
that actual skins were shown as relics before some cave near
Triphylian Pylos.
(19) Gemoll explains that Hermes, having offered all the meat as
sacrifice to the Twelve Gods, remembers that he himself as
one of them must be content with the savour instead of the
substance of the sacrifice. Can it be that by eating he
would have forfeited the position he claimed as one of the
Twelve Gods?
(20) Lit. 'thorn-plucker'.
(21) Hermes is ambitious (l. 175), but if he is cast into Hades
he will have to be content with the leadership of mere
babies like himself, since those in Hades retain the state
of growth -- whether childhood or manhood -- in which they
are at the moment of leaving the upper world.
(22) Literally, 'you have made him sit on the floor', i.e. 'you
have stolen everything down to his last chair.'
(23) The Thriae, who practised divination by means of pebbles
(also called THRIAE). In this hymn they are represented as
aged maidens (ll. 553-4), but are closely associated with
bees (ll. 559-563) and possibly are here conceived as having
human heads and ******* with the bodies and wings of bees.
See the edition of Allen and Sikes, Appendix III.
(24) Cronos swallowed each of his children the moment that they
were born, but ultimately was forced to disgorge them.
Hestia, being the first to be swallowed, was the last to be
disgorged, and so was at once the first and latest born of
the children of Cronos. Cp. Hesiod "Theogony", ll. 495-7.
(25) Mr. Evelyn-White prefers a different order for lines #87-90
than that preserved in the MSS. This translation is based
upon the following sequence: ll. 89,90,87,88. -- DBK.
(26) 'Cattle-earning', because an accepted suitor paid for his
bride in cattle.
(27) The name Aeneas is here connected with the epithet AIEOS
(awful): similarly the name Odysseus is derived (in
"Odyssey" i.62) from ODYSSMAI (I grieve).
(28) Aphrodite extenuates her disgrace by claiming that the race
of Anchises is almost divine, as is shown in the persons of
Ganymedes and Tithonus.
(29) So Christ connecting the word with OMOS. L. and S. give =
OMOIOS, 'common to all'.
(30) Probably not Etruscans, but the non-Hellenic peoples of
Thrace and (according to Thucydides) of Lemnos and Athens.
Cp. Herodotus i. 57; Thucydides iv. 109.
(31) This line appears to be an alternative to ll. 10-11.
(32) The name Pan is here derived from PANTES, 'all'. Cp.
Hesiod, "Works and Days" ll. 80-82, "Hymn to Aphrodite" (v)
l. 198. for the significance of personal names.
(33) Mr. Evelyn-White prefers to switch l. 10 and 11, reading 11
first then 10. -- DBK.
(34) An extra line is inserted in some MSS. after l. 15. -- DBK.
(35) The epithet is a usual one for birds, cp. Hesiod, "Works and
Days", l. 210; as applied to Selene it may merely indicate
her passage, like a bird, through the air, or mean 'far
flying'.
__
The Homeric Hymns in the Hello Poetry collection are provided by:
Online Medieval and Classical Library.
Source site: http://omacl.org/Hesiod/hymns.html
