Muse, tell me the things done by golden Aphrodite, | |||
the one from Cyprus, who arouses sweet desire for gods | |||
and who subdues the populations of mortal humans, | |||
and birds as well, who fly in the sky, as well as all beasts | |||
5 | —all those that grow on both dry land and the sea [pontos]. | ||
They all know the things done by the one with the beautiful garlands, the one from Cythera1 | |||
But there are three whose phrenes she cannot win over or deceive. | |||
The first is the daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, bright-eyed Athena. | |||
For she takes no pleasure in the things done by golden Aphrodite. | |||
10 | What does please her is wars and what is done by Arēs, | ||
battles and fighting, as well as the preparation of splendid pieces of craftsmanship. | |||
For she was the first to teach mortal humans to be craftsmen | |||
in making war-chariots and other things on wheels, decorated with bronze. | |||
And she it is who teaches maidens, tender of skin, inside the palaces, | |||
15 | the skill of making splendid pieces of craftsmanship, putting it | ||
firmly into each one’s mind [phrēn]. | |||
The second is the renowned Artemis, she of the golden shafts: never | |||
has she been subdued in lovemaking [philotēs] by Aphrodite, lover of smiles [to whom smiles are phila]. | |||
For she takes pleasure in the bow and arrows, and the killing of wild beasts in the mountains, | |||
as well as lyres, groups of singing dancers, and high-pitched shouts of celebration. | |||
20 | Also shaded groves and the city of dikaioi men. | ||
The third one not to take pleasure in the things done by Aphrodite is that young Maiden full of aidōs, | |||
Hestia,2 who was the first-born child of Kronos, the one with the crooked mētis, | |||
as well as the last and youngest,3 through the Will [boulē] of Zeus, holder of the aegis. | |||
She was the Lady who was wooed by Poseidon and Apollo. | |||
25 | But she was quite unwilling, and she firmly refused. | ||
She had sworn a great oath, and what she said became what really happened. | |||
She swore, as she touched the head of her father Zeus, the aegis-bearer,4 | |||
that she would be a virgin for all days to come, that illustrious goddess. | |||
And to her Father Zeus gave a beautiful honor, as a compensating substitute for marriage. | |||
30 | She is seated in the middle of the house, getting the richest portion.5 | ||
And in all the temples of the gods she has a share in the tīmē. | |||
Among all the mortals, she is the senior goddess. | |||
These are the three [goddesses] that she [Aphrodite] could not persuade in their phrenes. | |||
As for all the rest, there is nothing that has escaped Aphrodite: | |||
35 | none of the blessed gods nor any of mortal humans. | ||
She even led astray the noos of Zeus, the one who delights in the thunder, | |||
the one who is the very greatest and the one who has the very greatest tīmē as his share. | |||
But even his well-formed phrenes are deceived by her, whenever she wants, | |||
as she mates him with mortal women with the greatest of ease, | |||
40 | unbeknownst to Hera, his sister and wife, | ||
who is the best among all the immortal goddesses in her great beauty. | |||
She was the most glorious [kudos-filled] female to be born to Kronos, the one with the crooked mētis, | |||
and to her mother, Rhea. And Zeus, the one whose resources are inexhaustible [a-phthi-ta], | |||
made her his honorable wife, one who knows the ways of affection. | |||
45 | But even upon her [Aphrodite] Zeus put sweet desire in her thūmos | ||
—desire to make love to a mortal man, so that | |||
not even she may go without mortal lovemaking | |||
and get a chance to gloat at all the other gods, | |||
with her sweet laughter, Aphrodite, lover of smiles, | |||
50 | boasting that she can make the gods sleep with mortal women, | ||
who then bear mortal sons to immortal fathers, | |||
and how she can make the goddesses sleep with mortal men. | |||
And so he [Zeus] put sweet desire in her thūmos—desire for Anchises. | |||
At that time, he [Anchises] was herding cattle at the steep peaks of Mount Ida, famous for its many springs. | |||
55 | To look at him and the way he was shaped was like looking at the immortals. | ||
When Aphrodite, lover of smiles, saw him, | |||
she fell in love with him. A terrible desire seized her in her phrenes. | |||
She went to Cyprus, entering her temple fragrant with incense, | |||
to Paphos.6 That is where her sacred precinct is, and her altar, fragrant with incense. | |||
60 | She went in and closed the shining doors. | ||
Then the Kharites [‘Graces’] bathed her and anointed her with oil | |||
the kind that gives immortality, glistening on the complexion of the gods, who last for all time. | |||
Immortal it was, giver of pleasures, and it had the fragrance of incense. | |||
Then she wrapped all her beautiful clothes around her skin. | |||
65 | She was decked out in gold, Aphrodite, lover of smiles. | ||
She rushed toward Troy, leaving behind fragrant Cyprus. | |||
Making her way with the greatest of ease, high up among the clouds. | |||
She arrived at Mount Ida, famous for its many springs, nurturing mother of beasts. | |||
She went straight for the herdsmen’s homestead, up over the mountain. Following her came | |||
70 | gray wolves and lions with fierce looks, fawning on her; | ||
bears too, and nimble leopards, who cannot have their fill of devouring deer, | |||
came along. Seeing them, she was delighted in her thūmos, inside her phrenes, | |||
and she put desire where their hearts were. So they all | |||
went off in pairs and slept together in shaded nooks. | |||
75 | She in the meantime came to the well-built shelters | ||
and found him [Anchises] left all alone at the herdsmen’s homestead, | |||
that hero [hērōs] Anchises, who had the beauty of the gods. | |||
All the others [the other herdsmen] went after the herds, along the grassy pastures, | |||
while he was left all alone at the herdsmen’s homestead, | |||
80 | pacing back and forth, playing tunes on his lyre that pierce the inside. | ||
She stood before him, the daughter of Zeus, Aphrodite, | |||
looking like an unwed maiden in size of length7 and appearance. | |||
She did not want him to notice [verb of noos] her with his eyes and be frightened of her. | |||
When Anchises saw her he was filled with wonder as he took note | |||
85 | of her appearance and size of length and splendid clothes. | ||
For she wore a robe that was more resplendent than the brightness of fire. | |||
She had twisted brooches, and shiny earrings in the shape of flowers. | |||
Around her tender throat were the most beautiful necklaces. | |||
It [her robe] was a thing of beauty, golden, decorated with every sort of design. Like the moon | |||
90 | it glowed all around her tender breasts, a marvel to behold. | ||
Seized with love, Anchises said to her: | |||
“Hail, my Lady, you who come here to this home, whichever of the blessed ones you are, | |||
Artemis or Leto or golden Aphrodite | |||
or Themis of noble birth or bright-eyed Athena. | |||
95 | Or perhaps you are one of the Kharites, you who have come here. They are the ones | ||
who keep company with all the gods and are called immortal. | |||
Or you are one of those Nymphs who range over beautiful groves, | |||
or one of those Nymphs who inhabit this beautiful mountain, | |||
and the fountainheads of rivers and grassy meadows. | |||
100 | For you, on some high peak, in a spot with a view going all round, | ||
I will set up an altar, and I will perform for you beautiful sacrifices | |||
every year as the season [hōrā] comes round. And I wish that you in turn may have a kindly-disposed thūmos towards me. | |||
Grant that I become a man who is distinguished among the Trojans. | |||
Make the genealogy that comes after me become a flourishing one. And make me | |||
105 | live a very long life and see the light of the sun, | ||
blessed [olbios] in the midst of the people. And let me arrive at the threshold of old age.”8 | |||
Then Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, answered him: | |||
“Anchises, most glorious of earth-born men! | |||
I am no goddess. Why do you liken me to the female immortals? | |||
110 | No, I am a mortal. The mother that bore me was a woman. | ||
My father is Otreus, famed for his name.9 Maybe you have heard of him. | |||
He rules over all of Phrygia, with its strong-walled fortresses. | |||
But I know your language as well as my own.10 | |||
The nursemaid who brought me up in the palace was a Trojan.11 Ever since I was a small child, | |||
115 | she brought me up, having taken me from my philē mother. | ||
That is why I know your language as well as my own. | |||
But then, the one with the golden wand, the Argos-killer [Hermes], abducted me, | |||
taking me from a festival of song and dance in honor of Artemis, the one with the golden arrows. | |||
There were many of us nymphs there, maidens worth many cattle as bride-price. | |||
120 | We were having a good time, and a crowd so large that you couldn’t count them was standing around us in a circle. | ||
Then it was that the one with the golden wand, the Argos-killer, abducted me. | |||
He carried me over many fields of mortal humans | |||
and over vast stretches of land unclaimed and unsettled, where wild beasts, | |||
eaters of raw flesh, roam about, in and out of their shaded lairs. | |||
125 | I thought that my feet would never again touch the earth, grower of grain. | ||
And he [Hermes] said that I, in your bed, the bed of Anchises, would be called your | |||
lawfully-wedded wife, and that I would give you splendid children. | |||
But once he [Hermes] pointed this out and made note of it, straightaway | |||
he went back, that powerful Argos-killer, to that separate group, the immortals. | |||
130 | I in the meantime reached you here, and there is an overpowering compulsion that I have in me. | ||
In the name of Zeus, in the name of your parents, I appeal to you as I touch your knees. | |||
Your parents must be noble, for base ones could never have conceived such a one as you.12 | |||
Take me, virgin that I am, inexperienced in making love [philotēs], | |||
and show me to your father and to your caring mother | |||
135 | and to your brothers, those born from the same parents. | ||
I will not be an unseemly in-law for them, but a seemly one indeed. | |||
And send a messenger quickly to the Phrygians, trainers of swift horses, | |||
to tell my father and my mother, however much she grieves. | |||
They will send you plenty of gold, and woven clothing as well. | |||
140 | Take these abundant and splendid things as dowry. | ||
After you have done so, prepare a lovely wedding-feast | |||
that gives tīmē to both humans and immortals.” | |||
After she said these things, she put sweet desire in his thūmos, | |||
and Anchises was seized with love. He said these words, calling out to her: | |||
145 | “If you are mortal, and if a woman was the mother who gave birth to you, | ||
and if Otreus is your father, famed for his name, as you say he is, | |||
and if you have come here because of the Immortal Conductor [of psūkhai], | |||
Hermes, and if you are to be called my wife for all days to come, | |||
then it is impossible for any god or any mortal human | |||
150 | to hold me back, right here, from joining with you in making love [philotēs], | ||
right now, on the spot—not even if the one who shoots from afar, Apollo himself, | |||
takes aim from his silver bow and shoots his arrows that bring misery. | |||
Then, O Lady who looks like the gods, I would willingly, | |||
once I have been in your bed, go down into the palace of Hādēs below.” | |||
155 | So saying, he took her by the hand. And Aphrodite, lover of smiles, | ||
went along, with her face turned away and her eyes downcast, | |||
towards the bed, all nicely made, which had already been arranged for the lord,13 | |||
all nicely made with soft covers.14 And on top lay skins of | |||
bears and lions, who roar with their deep voices, | |||
160 | which he himself had killed on the lofty mountainsides. | ||
And when they went up into the sturdy bed, | |||
he first took off the jewelry shining on the surface of her body | |||
the twisted brooches and the shiny earrings in the shape of flowers. | |||
Then he undid her waistband and her resplendent garments. | |||
165 | He stripped them off and put them on a silver-studded stool, | ||
Anchises did. And then, by the will of the gods and by fate [aisa], | |||
he lay next to the immortal female, mortal male that he was. He did not know what he was really doing. | |||
But when the time comes for herdsmen to drive back to the fold | |||
their cattle and sturdy sheep, back from the flowery pastures, | |||
170 | then it was that she [Aphrodite] poured sweet sleep over Anchises, | ||
sweet and pleasurable. She in the meantime put back on her beautiful clothes, which covered again the surface of her body. | |||
Now that her skin was again beautifully covered over, the resplendent goddess | |||
stood by the bed, and the well-built roof-beam | |||
– her head reached that high up.15 And beauty shone forth from her cheeks | |||
175 | —an immortal beauty, the kind that marks the one with the beautiful garlands, the goddess from Cythera. | ||
Then she woke him from his sleep and called out to him, saying: | |||
“Rise up, son of Dardanos! Why do you sleep such a sleep without awakening? | |||
See if I look like | |||
what you noticed [verb of noos] when you first saw me with your eyes.” | |||
180 | So she spoke, and he, fresh out of his sleep, straightaway heeded her word. | ||
As soon as he saw the neck and the beautiful eyes of Aphrodite, | |||
he was filled with fright and he turned his eyes away, in another direction. | |||
Then he hid his beautiful face with a cloak [khlaina], | |||
and, praying to her, addressed her with winged words: | |||
185 | “The first time I ever laid eyes on you, goddess, | ||
I knew you were a god. But you did not speak to me accurately. | |||
Now I appeal to you by touching your knees, in the name of Zeus the holder of the aegis, | |||
don’t let me become disabled [without menos],16 don’t let me live on like that among humans! | |||
Please, take pity! I know that no man is full of life, able,17 | |||
190 | if he sleeps with immortal goddesses.” | ||
He was answered by the daughter of Zeus, Aphrodite: | |||
“Anchises, most glorious of mortal humans! | |||
Take heart, and do not be too afraid in your phrenes. | |||
You should have no fear of that I would do any kind of bad thing to you, | |||
195 | or that any of the other blessed ones would. For you are philos indeed to the gods. | ||
And you will have a philos son, who will be king among the Trojans. | |||
And following him will be generations after generations for all time to come. | |||
His name will be Aineias [Aeneas], since it was an unspeakable [ainos]18 akhos that took hold of me—grief that I | |||
had fallen into the bed of a mortal man. | |||
200 | And yet, of all mortal humans, the closest to the gods by far | ||
are those who come from your family line,19 both in looks and in constitution.20 | |||
Why, there was golden-haired Ganymede, whom Zeus the master of mētis | |||
abducted on account of his beauty, so that he may be together with the immortal ones, | |||
as wine-pourer for the gods in the palace of Zeus,21 | |||
205 | a wonder to behold, given his share of tīmē by all the immortals, | ||
pouring red nectar from a golden mixing-bowl. | |||
Tros [Ganymede’s father] was gripped in his phrenes by a penthos that is beyond forgetting. He did not know | |||
where the miraculous gust of wind took his philos son, abducting him. | |||
He [Tros] mourned him [Ganymede] without pause, for all days, | |||
210 | and Zeus took pity on him: he gave him a compensation for his son, | ||
a set of high-stepping horses whom the gods use for their travels. | |||
These horses he [Zeus] gave him [Tros] as a gift to keep. And he [Tros] was told all the details of what happened, | |||
at the behest of Zeus, by the Argos-killer, the Conductor [of psūkhai]. | |||
He was told that he [Ganymede] would be immortal and ageless, just like the gods. | |||
215 | And when he [Tros] heard the message of Zeus, | ||
he no longer lamented but was happy within his phrenes, | |||
and merrily did he ride around, in a chariot drawn by horses with feet swift as a gust of wind, | |||
In much the same way was Tithonos abducted by Eos [the Dawn Goddess], she of the golden pattern-weave.22 | |||
He too belonged to your family line, looking like the immortal ones. | |||
220 | Then she went with a request to the Son of Kronos [Zeus], him of the dark clouds, | ||
asking that he [Tithonos] become immortal and live for all days to come.23 | |||
Zeus nodded yes to her and brought to fulfillment the words of her wish. | |||
Too bad that her thinking was disconnected! The Lady Eos did not notice [verb of noos] in her phrenes | |||
that she should have asked for adolescence [hēbē] and a stripping away of baneful old age. | |||
225 | Well, for a while he [Tithonos] held on to adolescence [hēbē], | ||
enjoying Eos, the one with the gold pattern-weave,24 the one early-born. | |||
He lived at the streams of the Okeanos, and the ends of the earth. | |||
But when the first strands of gray hair started growing | |||
from his beautiful head and his noble chin, | |||
230 | then the Lady Eos stopped coming to his bed. | ||
But she nourished him, keeping him in her palace, | |||
with grain and ambrosia. And she gave him beautiful clothes. | |||
But when hateful old age was pressing hard on him, with all its might, | |||
and he couldn’t move his limbs, much less lift them up, | |||
235 | then in her thūmos she thought up this plan, a very good one indeed: | ||
she put him in her chamber, and she closed the shining doors over him. | |||
From there his voice pours out—it seems never to end—and he has no strength at all, | |||
the kind he used to have in his limbs when they could still bend. | |||
I would not choose that you [Anchises] be that way, amongst the immortal ones, | |||
240 | immortal and living for all days to come.25 | ||
If you could only stay the way you are, in looks and constitution, | |||
staying alive as my lawfully-wedded husband, | |||
then akhos would not have to envelop me and my sturdy phrenes.26 | |||
But now wretched old age will envelop you, | |||
245 | pitilessly, just as it catches up with every man. | ||
It is baneful, it wears you down, and even the gods shrink back from it. | |||
As for me, I will have a great disgrace [oneidos], in the eyes of the immortal ones, | |||
a disgrace that will last for all days to come, without end, all on account of you. | |||
My trysts and stratagems [mētis pl.] with which I used to get all | |||
250 | the immortal gods mated with mortal women, | ||
used to be feared by them [the gods]. For my power of noos used to subdue all of them. | |||
But now my mouth can never again boast | |||
about this among the immortals. I have gone very far off the track, | |||
in a wretched and inexcusable way. I have strayed from my noos. | |||
255 | I got myself a child beneath my waistband, having slept with a male mortal. | ||
As for him [the child], the moment he sees the light of the sun, | |||
Nymphs, living in the mountains and wearing low-slung waistbands, will raise him | |||
Nymphs that live on this great and fertile mountain. | |||
They associate neither with mortals nor with immortals, | |||
260 | they live for a long time, and they eat immortal food. | ||
They put on a beautiful song and dance, even by the standards of the immortals. | |||
They mate with Seilēnoi27 or with the sharp-sighted Argos-killer, | |||
making love [philotēs] in the recesses of lovely caves. | |||
When they are born, firs and oaks with lofty boughs | |||
265 | spring out of the earth, that nurturer of men. | ||
Beautiful trees, flourishing on high mountains, | |||
they stand there pointing to the sky, and people call them the sacred places | |||
of the immortal ones. Mortals may not cut them down with iron. | |||
But when the fate [moira] of death is at hand for them, | |||
270 | these beautiful trees become dry, to start with, | ||
and then their bark wastes away, and then the branches drop off, | |||
and, at the same time, the psūkhē goes out of them, as it leaves the light of the sun. | |||
These [the Nymphs] will raise my son, keeping him in their company. | |||
And when adolescence [hēbē], full of loveliness, first takes hold of him,28 | |||
275 | the goddesses [the Nymphs] will take him here to you and show you your child. | ||
As for you, in order that I may tell you in the proper order everything that I have in my phrenes, | |||
I too will come back to you as the fifth anniversary approaches, bringing you your son. | |||
And the moment you see this young seedling [Aineias/Aeneas] with your eyes, | |||
you will be happy to look at him. For he will be very godlike. | |||
280 | And straightaway you shall take him to windy Ilion. | ||
And if any mortal human asks you | |||
what mother got your philos son beneath her waistband, | |||
keep in mind [root mnē–] to tell him as I command you. | |||
Say that he is the offspring of one of the flower-faced Nymphs | |||
285 | who live on this beautiful mountain, shaded over by forests. | ||
But if you say out loud and boast, with a thūmos bereft of phrenes, | |||
that you made love [philotēs] to the Lady of Cythera, the one with the beautiful garlands, | |||
then Zeus in his anger will smite you with a smoking thunderbolt. | |||
Now then, everything has been said to you. You take note [verb of noos] in your phrenes. | |||
290 | And refrain from naming me. Avoid the mēnis of the gods.” | ||
So saying, she bolted away towards the windy sky. | |||
I wish you kharis [‘I wish you pleasure and happiness from our relationship, starting now’], goddess, you who rule over beautifully-colonized Cyprus. | |||
Having started with you, I will now go on to the rest of my performance. |
Footnotes
[ back ] 1. Cyprus and Cythera were both particularly famous for their cults of Aphrodite. This is acknowledged regularly, even on the pan-Hellenic level.
[ back ] 2. Hestia [Ionic Histiē] means ‘hearth, fireplace’.
[ back ] 3. A reference to the myth, as we find it in the Theogony of Hesiod (495-497), that tells how Kronos swallowed his children, only to disgorge them later. The first-born Hestia was the first to be swallowed and the last to be disgorged. It is a common theme in the myths of many societies that fire is simultaneously very old and very young.
[ back ] 4. This gesture reflects the custom of touching a philon part of a philos person in order to perform a philon act corresponding to the phila words addressed to that person.
[ back ] 5. The hearth is the focus of sacrificial offerings.
[ back ] 6. Paphos is a city on the island of Cyprus.
[ back ] 7. Ordinarily, gods would be larger-than-life-size.
[ back ] 8. Anchises may be formulating his request in an “incorrect” order of preference.
[ back ] 9. The name seems to mean: “he who impels, he who gives impulse.”
[ back ] 10. The Phrygian tongue would be foreign to Greeks.
[ back ] 11. From the standpoint of this poem, it seems that Trojans are “Greeks.”
[ back ] 12. By implication, the disguised Aphrodite is saying that Anchises surely must have some divine ancestry himself. She almost gives herself away here.
[ back ] 13. The epithet anax ‘lord’ is appropriate both to persons of royal ancestry and to cult-heroes.
[ back ] 14. The word khlaina ‘cloak, cover’ seems to be used consistently in contexts where an ainos is at work.
[ back ] 15. The goddess here resumes her divine dimensions.
[ back ] 16. A euphemism, replacing words that are clearly better left unsaid.
[ back ] 17. Again, a matter of euphemism.
[ back ] 18. This is the adjective ainos [‘unspeakable, causing nervousness, fear, terror, terrible’], not the noun ainos [designates a mode of discourse that contains within it more than one message, and where only one of the messages is true]. What we see here is a “folk etymology”: Aphrodite is deriving the name Aineias [Aeneas] from ainos.
[ back ] 19. This reflects, I think, on the name Ankhisēs, which I take to be a conflation of the epithets ankhitheos ‘close to the gods’ and isotheos ‘equal to the gods’. Both of these epithets reflect the theme of god-hero antagonism.
[ back ] 20. In other words, it is in these two respects that Anchises and the other males in his family line come closest to the gods.
[ back ] 21. So the gods too, like the Greeks, have wine-pourers; as we shall now see, however, what is poured for the gods is not exactly wine.
[ back ] 22. Alternatively, ‘she of the golden throne’.
[ back ] 23. Eos botches the wording of her request. As we shall now see, the ruined formula produces ruinous results.
[ back ] 24. Alternatively, ‘her of the golden throne’.
[ back ] 25. Aphrodite repeats the botched formula of Eos.
[ back ] 26. But, as she has already said, Aphrodite will have sorrow from this affair.
[ back ] 27. These are satyr-like beings.
[ back ] 28. What seems to be meant is the very first signs that differentiate pre-adolescents from children.
2018-12-12