Book description
Composed for recitation at festivals, these 33 songs were written in
honour of the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greek pantheon. They
recount the key episodes in the lives of the gods, and dramatise the
moments when they first appear before mortals. Together they offer the
most vivid picture we have of the Greek view of the relationship between
the divine and human worlds.
Originally attributed to Homer because of their style and quality,
the hymns are now thought to have been written by of a number of
different poets of the 7th and 6th centuries BC.
Jules Cashford is a writer and lecturer on Mythology. She is the
author of The Myth of the Goddess (Arkana, 1991) & The Myth of the
Moon (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, forthcoming)
Dr Nicholas Richardson is a Fellow in English at Merton College, Oxford
