The Homeric hymns Author:Homer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE HYMN TO APOLLO THE Hymn to Apollo presents innumerable difficulties, both of text, which is very corrupt, and as to the whole nature and aim of the compos... more »ition. In this version it is divided into two portions, the first dealing with the birth of Apollo, and the foundation of his shrine in the isle of Delos ; the second concerned with the establishment of his Oracle and fane at Delphi. The division is made merely to lighten the considerable strain on the attention of the English reader. I have no pretensions to decide whether the second portion was by the author of the first, or is an imitation by another hand, or is contemporary, or a later addition, or a mere compilation from several sources. The first part seems to find a natural conclusion, about lines 176-181. The blind singer (who isquoted here by Thucydides) appears at that point to say farewell to his cherished Ionian audience. What follows, in our second part, appeals to hearers interested in the Apollo of Crisa, and of the Delphian temple : the Pythian Apollo. According to a highly ingenious, but scarcely persuasive theory of Mr. Verrall's, this interest is unfriendly.1 Our second part is no hymn at all, but a sequel tacked on for political purposes only: and valuable for these purposes because so tacked on. From line 207 to the end we have this sequel, the story of Apollo's dealings as Delphinian, and as Pythian ; all this following on detached fragments of enigmatic character, and containing also (305-355) the intercalated myth about the birth of Typhaon from Hera's anger. In the politically inspired sequel there is, according to Mr. Verrall, no living zeal for the honour of Pytho (Delphi). The threat of the God to his Cretan ministers,—" Beware of arrogance, or . . ."—must be a prophecy after the event. No...« less