The Homeric Hymns - Hardcover

This translation is very welcome, as until now there has been no widely available modern translation in English ... the translation should prove a great help to those wishing to teach the hymns to students with little or no Greek. Since they are of manageable length, and contain much that is of great interest for Greek religion and poetry, these hymns are eminently worthy of study; and Crudden's efforts should help introduce them to a wider readership. (Hermathena: A Trinity College Dublin Review)

Crudden's explanatory notes do a good job of conveying a lot of interesting points in a short space ... at its best Crudden's translation flows smoothly, and captures something of the movement of the originals. (Hermathena: A Trinity College Dublin Review)

The translation itself is highly readable ... It is the triumph of the English language and of Crudden's ingenious usage of it that he has succeeded in squeezing such a different version out of almost every line. (Bryn Mawr Classical Review)

The Homeric Hymns honour the Greek gods. They are called 'Homeric' because the ancients attributed them to Homer; it is now accepted that they were composed by later poets working in the same tradition, probably during the seventh and sixth centuries BC. Four of them (Hymns 2-5) stand out by reason of their length and quality. The Hymn to Demeter tells what happened when Hades, lord of the dead, abducted Persephone, Demeter's daughter (this storyy is connected to the Eleusinian Mysteries, which offered the Greeks the hope of a better lot in the afterlife). The Hymn to Apollo recounts Apollo's birth and the foundation of his Delphic oracle. In the Hymn to Hermes Apollo's cattle are stolen by a felonious infant―Hermes, god of thieves. In the Hymn to Aphrodite the goddess of love herself becomes infatuated with a mortal man, the Trojan prince Ankhises (their son is Aineias, the hero of Virgil's Aeneid). This volume offers a faithful verse translation of all the hymns, Explanatory Notes, and a Glossary of Names.