Hermetically Unsealed

The Hymn to Hermes offers a late archaic or early classical viewpoint on genre in lyric poetry. It compares hymns and theogonies to bantering songs at symposia, apparently in a paradox grounded in Hermes’ ability to control transfers across firm boundaries. However, the comparisons have a latent logic: the Hymn to Hermes is itself bantering intertextually with the Homeric Hymn to Apollo ; it alludes to the fact that a komos can involve both praise-poetry and (post-)sympotic erotic songs. Moreover, Apollo’s first interaction with the lyre leads him to engage Hermes in a game of verbal banter, which suggests that this ability of the lyre to unite contrasting performance types will continue under his patronage. In this sense, the Hymn implicitly reflects on its own power to reshape the audience’s attitudes towards music.

Apollo · Art · Hymn · Literature · Poetry · Praise · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies