Poseidon
PoseidonReading the Homeric Hymns
The Homeric Hymns are sung prayers composed over a century, roughly 650-550 B.C. They describe how various gods and goddesses acquired their distinctive honors and powers, including important cults and sanctuaries. They also describe the special prerogatives, haunts, and activities of these divinities. The purpose of the Hymns is to secure the attention and favor of the god addressed for the singer and his community. The name "Homeric" comes from the fact that these hymns are written using the meter, vocabulary, and narrative technique of the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Hymns fit into the class of Panhellenic poetry, which was written for the Greek world generally, rather than for the audience of a particular locale. In this regard they resemble the Theogony of Hesiod and the Homeric epics. The Hymns are set in that period of time just after Zeus has come to power over the universe, but before the world of mortals has reached the shape familiar to its inhabitants. It is an important function of the Hymns to provide explanations and descriptions of how, through the role of the gods, the world reached that familiar shape.
Homeric Hymn to Poseidon
Thinking about Greek geography generally, how important was the sea to Greek civilization?
In ancient Greek geography the earth was seen as a body of land surrounded by the river of Ocean. Poseidon, as ruler of these waters, is also responsible for the shaking of the land mass of the earth, and, hence, his title "earth-shaker." Greece is subject to occasional earthquakes--historically some have been very catastrophic--and Poseidon is capable of stilling them.
Poseidon is called controller of horses. The Greek word for controller is dmeter, which is related to our word tame. (Poseidon, the original cowboy?) Of all sources of physical power and swiftness available to ancient people, where would horses rank?
Dark-haired, is a translation of a Greek word which means dark blue-haired, which suggests something inhuman, but consistent with the nature of the sea.
Is this hymn just an expression of wonder and reverence for the god, or is there an appeal included, a plea? What is it?
Theocritus, 'Cyclops'
Sea divinities are mostly either beautiful and graceful or ugly and monstrous. Poseidon is father of the cyclopes, the large one-eyed creatures who are often violent to mortals. In fact, the cyclops Polyphemus killed and ate several companions of Odysseus when the Greek hero and his crew stopped to visit the cyclops's island on their voyage home from the Trojan War. The story is told in the Odyssey. How does the image of a violent Polyphemus affect the way one views this Polyphemus?
In the present poem the poet speaks with his companion Nicias about the possible remedies for love. What point does the song of Polyphemus illustrate?
As a doctor who sings, Nicias, you know this well. When Polyphemus was madly in love with Galatea, he kept himself under control by song. Praises her beauty. Offers wealth of a prosperous shepherd, i.e. plenty to eat. Willing to give up his eye for her. Outcome: He may not have achieved his desire--the affection of Galatea--but he was better off by singing than by spending gold on her. Also, he should be content with those who are present, on land, rather than seek someone who, as a sea-nymph, is out of reach.
What is the tone of Polyphemus's song? What is the tone of the poem in which the song is placed? P's efforts to be sublime in verse are constantly undercut by his tendancy toward the bathetic. Noble sentiments shift to the mundane and vulgar. (I would have brought you lilies or poppies. But one grows in summer the other in winter. I couldn't have brought them both.)
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Revised: June 22, 1995