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Homeric Hymns
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Hymns 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Hymn 5 Summary: “To Aphrodite”
The hymn introduces Aphrodite, goddess of lust, as a seducer of both gods and humans. To humiliate the gods, Aphrodite makes them desire mortals. Tired of her cruel tricks, Zeus uses his power to make Aphrodite to fall helplessly in love with a mortal man, Anchises. After seeing the beautiful Anchises, Aphrodite hurries to her shrine at Paphos and adorns herself in incense and beautiful garments. She returns to Anchises and states that she is a mortal woman who was brought to him by Hermes while attending a festival honoring marriage. After sleeping with Anchises, Aphrodite readorns herself in her beautiful garments and changes into her goddess form. She tells Anchises that he will have a son who is to be named Aeneas, after her own anguish felt by sleeping with a mortal man (the name of Aeneas relates to the Greek ainos, or “grievous”).
Aphrodite reminds Anchises of the fate of two men in his lineage; his grandfather Ganymede and great-grandfather Tros. Zeus kidnapped Ganymede to Olympus because Zeus admired the mortal’s stunning beauty and wanted him as a kind of ornament; Ganymede now pours nectar for the gods and never ages. Tros, as compensation for losing his son, was gifted horses and soon married Tithonus. Tithonus asked Hades to grant Tros everlasting life yet failed to include everlasting youth in her wish. Tros never died but continued to age, eventually becoming a cicada. Aphrodite says Anchises will not suffer the same fate as either Ganymede or Tros.
Aphrodite proclaims that nymphs will raise Aeneas and that once Aeneas is a young man, the nymphs will bring him to Anchises. She instructs Anchises to tell all who ask of Aeneas’s mother that she is a nymph. After cautioning Anchises that Zeus will smite him if he brags about sleeping with her, Aphrodite returns to Olympus.
Hymn 6 Summary: “To Aphrodite”
The hymn recalls Aphrodite’s birth: She emerges out of sea foam, and the Hours, goddesses of time, adorn her in “gold headdresses,” “sacred clothes,” and “earrings” (67). The Hours take Aphrodite to Olympus where she is immediately sought after by the gods. The narrator asks Aphrodite to find him and his hymn worthy of her.
Hymns 5-6 Analysis
The first hymn to Aphrodite is a cautionary tale against mortal interaction with the gods. The stories of Ganymede and Tros, Anchises’s forefathers, present opposite scenarios of what everlasting life could entail: The former retains eternal life and youth while imprisoned in Olympus, while the latter suffers eternal aging on earth. Aphrodite’s decision to have nymphs raise Aeneas, her son with Anchises, establishes a middle ground, as nymphs eat holy food and interact with the gods yet still age and eventually perish. The hymn to Aphrodite asserts that mortal’s should not attempt to achieve immortality, as it is against their nature and will end poorly.
When Aphrodite warns Anchises against boasting of having seduced a goddess, and when she instructs to have Aeneas’s maternal lineage obscured, it is to cover for her own failure to control her mortal temptations. Therefore, Aeneas, as the result of Aphrodite’s sexual union with Anchises, is also the embodiment of her failure to remain godlike. She insists on the separation of mortals and immortals: “Don’t say my name, but think of the gods’ anger” (66). The boundary between the divine and mortal worlds is transgressed but then quickly re-established. While Aphrodite and Anchises both transgress the threshold, this hymn primarily emphasizes the importance of keeping the two worlds separate; a transgression by either mortal or god can entail severe consequences and disrupt order and balance.
Aphrodite’s birth presents the goddess as a beautiful woman who is sought after by the gods. As such, she perfectly embodies the powers of her godly domain—seduction, love, and beauty.
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