Hymn to Aphrodite

The Homeric Hymns are not cult texts but rhapsodes' preludes: they were sung before a recitation of epic, to honour a deity and settle the audience. One line at the end, given on this card, shows it.

Σεῦ δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἀρξάμενος μεταβήσομαι ἄλλον ἐς ὕμνον — having begun from you, I shall pass to another song. This is a transition, a functional closing formula: the hymn is over, the main business begins. The short hymn to Aphrodite (homeric-aphrodite-003) ends with it too, and it makes plain at once what the whole body of this poetry was for.

The proem promises exhaustive power: Aphrodite subdues gods, mortals, the birds under heaven and all beasts, "as many as the dry land nourishes and as many as the sea". The coverage is total — land, sea, air, gods and men.

And precisely after that comes the story of the one time that power was turned back on her: Zeus put desire for the mortal Anchises into Aphrodite, so that she could no longer laugh at the gods she had been pairing with mortals. The narrative is not on the card (seam […]), but the proem was written for its sake: omnipotence is proclaimed first, and then its single exception is told.