The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (600s BCE?) tells the story of a brief encounter between the goddess of love and the cowherd Anchises, which led to the birth of the Trojan hero Aeneas. Less than 300 lines long, it is among the shortest of the so-called ‘major Homeric Hymns’, but is nonetheless
richly and beautifully conceived and narrated.
This book offers a complete text of the poem and of nine related ‘minor Hymns’, based on a fresh examination of the manuscripts. Also offered are a translation; a substantial introduction, which treats inter alia the problem of dating early Greek epic poetry; and a narratologically-oriented commentary.