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Apollo
Paean= ‘(healing) Hymn’
Paiawon - Minoan GodReshep - Near Eastern God (Revenge)
Apollo
• Healing and Purification
• Prophecy
• Music
• Revenge/Punishment
• Initiation of Youth into Society
Hail to you, blessed Leto, since splendid children you bore, Lord Apollo and archeress Artemis-her at Ortygia, him On Delos’ rocky isle, where against a tall mountain you leaned, The mound of Kynthos, hard by the palm at Inopos’ streams.’
Homeric Hymn to Apollo, pg.23
‘From there [Delos] you started out And over all mortals hold sway. As many folk as Crete Contains within her, and Athens’ country; Aigina isle, And, famed for its ships, Euboia; Aigai, Eiresia too, And near to the sea, Peparethos; Athos the Thracian height, And the topmost peaks of Pelion; Samos the Thracian isle, And the shadowy mountains of Ida; Skyros, Phokaia too, The precipitous mount of Autokane; Imbros the firm-founded isle, And mist-enshroued Lemnos….’
Homeric Hymn to Apollo, pp.23-24
Now let the Earth know this, and also broad Heaven above, And the down-dripping water of Styx, which is the blessed gods’ greatest and most dread oath: here Phoibos will always have His fragrant altar and precint, and will honour you [Delos] above all.’
Homeric Hymn to Apollo, pp.25-6
‘You (Apollo) delight in Delos the most, where Ionians trailing their robes, With children and wives who are worthy of reverence, gather for you. And they remember and please you with boxing, dancing and song, Whenever they hold their assembly. Someone then meeting them when The Ionians throng together would say they always exist Free of death and age; for he would see the grace That all possess……’
Homeric Hymn to Apollo, pg.28
The young Delian women, handmaids of him who shoots from afar. When they hymn first Apollo, and Leto with archeress Artemis next, They remember and sing a hymn of the men and women of old, And charm the tribes of humans. They know how to mimic the speech And the babble that all humans utter – each man would say he himself Was making the sound, their beautiful singing matches so.
Homeric Hymn to Apollo, pg.28.
Delos
The Homeric Hymns1. Dionysus - approx. 400 lines
2. Demeter - 495 lines
3. Apollo - 546 lines
4. Hermes - 568 lines
5. Aphrodite - 293 lines
6. Aphrodite - 21 lines
7. Dionysus - 59 lines
8. Ares - 17 lines
9. Artemis - 9 lines
10. Aphrodite - 6 lines
11. Athena - 5 lines
12. Hera - 5 lines
13. Demeter - 3 lines
14. Mother of the Gods - 6 lines
15. Herakles - 9 lines
16. Asklepios 5 lines
17. Dioscuri - 5 lines
18. Hermes - 12 lines
19. Pan - 49 lines
20. Hephaiston - 8 lines
21. Apollo - 5 lines
22. Poseidon - 7 lines
23. Zeus - 4 lines
24. Hestia - 5 lines
25. Muses and Apollo - 7 lines
26. Dionysus - 13 lines
27. Artemis - 22 lines
28. Athena - 18 lines
29. Hestia - 14 lines
30. The Mother of All - 19 lines
31. Helios - 19 lines
32. Selene - 20 lines
33. Dioscuri - 19 lines
• Hereafter remember me, When of earthy humans some strange suffering trials comes here And inquires: ‘Young women, what man do you think is the sweetest of bards That often passes this way, and in whom do you most delight?’ Let you all give fine answer of me: ‘A blind man he is, and dwells on rugged Khios; all of his songs are hereafter supreme.’ And I shall bring your fame as far as I wander on earth, To cities of fine habitation where humans have their homes, And they will believe my report, since it will indeed be the truth’.
Homeric Hymn to Apollo, pp.28-29
Musical ContestsApollo and Marsyas
“Why are you stripping me of my very self?” cried the Satyr. “Oh, I am mortified! What a great price I am paying for this flute!” And as he cries, the skin is stripped from his body until he’s all entirely one wound: blood runs out everywhere, and his uncovered sinews lie utterly exposed to view; his pulsing veins were flickering, and you could number all his writhing viscera and the gleaming organs underneath his sternum.
Ovid, Martin p.205, Melville p.133M&L, pp.255-6.
Apollo and Pan
Pan was boasting to the gentle nymphs of his skill at fingering the pipes and playing melodies on waxen reeds, he dared speak poorly of Apollo’s gift compared with his own- a boast which brought about the uneven contest which Timolus judged…. Pan made a noise on his outlandish reeds, and that barbaric song charmed Midas (who just happened to be present for the singing); when Pan had finished, Mount Timolus turned his face to Phoebus-and his forest followed. Apollo’s golden locks were crowned with laurel from Mount Parnassus, and his mantle, trimmed with Tyrian purple, swept along the ground; in his left hand, the god held up his lyre, inlaid with precious gems and ivory, and in his other hand he held the plectrum; an artist, in his bearing and his manner. And when his skillful thumb aroused the strings, the judge, so taken by that sweetness, ruled that Pan’s reeds must be humbled by the lyre.
Ovid, Martin pp.375-7, Melville pp.252-255M&L, pp.256-8
I plan to set up a beautiful shrine As an oracle sought by humans. Whether they’re fok who live on fertile Peloponnesos, or in europa swell And on isles tht waters flow round, they’ll always bring to me here their perfect hundredfold offerings, hoping to hear my response. I’ll give all unerring counsel, responding within my rich shrine.
Homeric Hymn to Apollo, pg.31
But there was near by a fair-flowing spring, and here the Snake was slain by the lord son of Zeus with a shot from his mighty bow, well-fattened and huge though she was, a savage monster, who caused much harm to human on earth-much harm to humans themselves, and much to their slender-legged flocks, since she was a blood-spattered bane. From Hera whose throne is golden she once had taken and reared the dread and fierce Typhaon, a bane to mortal men. Hera had given him birth in anger at Father Zeus……
Homeric Hymn to Apollo, pg. 33
Typhaon/Typhoeus
Child of Gaia and Tartarus in Hesiod Theogony 820-80
Child of Hera in this version‘And give me a son without Zeus who’ll be no less strong than he - So much mighter let him be as than Kronos was far-seeing Zeus’
Lord Apollo who works from afar let fly at her his mighty shaft, and she, being racked with cruel pains, was lying, loudly gasping, writhing upon the ground. An unearthly clamour arose beyond words, as she twisted now here, now there through the wood, and expiring departed her bloody life.
Homeric Hymn to Apollo, pg.35
Daphne and Apollo
Ovid, pp.33-8
M&L, pp.248-52
Loving her still, the god puts his right hand against the trunk, and even now can feel her heart as it beats under the new bark; he hugs her limbs as if they were still human, and then he puts his lips against the wood, which, even now, is adverse to his kiss. “Although you cannot be my bride,” he says, “you will assuredly be my own tree, O Laurel, and will always find yourself girding my locks, my lyre, and my quiver too’.
Ovid, pp.37-8
Apollo and CoronisHealing
When Apollo heard the accusation brought against his lover, the laurel resting on his brow slipped down; in not as much time as it takes to tell, his face, his lyre, his high color fell! Swelling with rage, he seized his customary weapon and bent it toward him from the tips; then his inexorable arrow flew into that breast so often pressed to his. Coronis groaned, and when the arrowhead was drawn out, her white limbs were drenched in gore.
Ovid, Martin pg.76, Melville pp.40-43M&L, pp.253-4
Now he is sorry for his cruel punishment, belatedly, and hates himself for what he listened to, and for his furious response to it: he hates the bird who forced him into this….. he strokes the fallen girl, too late, and tries to overcome her fate: too late again, for his attempt to bring her back to life through the arts of medicine are naught…. (she is placed in a pyre)…. But Phoebus could not bear for his own seed to perish in those flames – and so he ripped the unborn child out of its mother’s womb and brought it to the centaur Chiron’s cave.
DELPHI
