An adjective is a word that refers to a characteristic of a noun. How can you identify an adjective?

If you can put a word between the and a noun (like boy, or idea), then that word is an adjective.

For example, since we can say the tall boy, tall is an adjective. Similarly, we can say the silly boy, the interesting boy, and the young boy. Therefore, silly, interesting, and young are all adjectives.

A number of adjectives, all used in the phrase the –– boy are listed below. The adjectives are underlined:

1. the brilliant boy

2. the embarrassed boy

3. the blonde boy

4. the hungry boy

5. the delightful boy

Compare these phrases to *the very boy, *the a boy, and *the talk boy. Very, a, and talk are not adjectives.

What do adjectives actually do? Adjectives always tell us something about a noun. Another way of saying this is that they modify a noun. In the phrases we've just looked at, the underlined adjectives tell us something about, or modify, the noun boy.

In August 1992 Pat Easterling wrote to me, suggesting an edition of some of the Homeric Hymns for this series. Fortunately the long delay in completing the present volume has not deterred several younger scholars from undertaking more detailed commentaries on each of these three poems. This has made it easier for me to see my own work as a stage in a process, rather than an attempt to offer a final verdict on all the possible questions which might arise.

I have not undertaken a new examination of the manuscripts, but have used the apparatus criticus of Càssola. In the Introduction linguistic issues are briefly discussed, and there is still scope for further work in this area. Equally, my suggestions about the dating and provenance of these hymns are very provisional, and I should be only too happy if others can improve on these. I regret that it has not been possible to discuss more extensively the Nachleben of the Hymns, a subject on which much more remains to be said, or to include some of the shorter ones as I had originally hoped to do.

In view of the fact that Andrew Faulkner's major edition of the Hymn to Aphrodite is now published, I have also kept my commentary on this poem (which I had drafted first of all) relatively brief, and have paid more detailed attention to the other two hymns.

To Apollo

Title. Some manuscripts have the title (τοῦ αὐτοῦ) Ὁμήρου ὕμνοι ɛἰς Ἀπόλλωνα, others the singular ὕμνος. But the plural occurs at the head of some other hymns, and is simply a general title of this collection, not evidence that this hymn was regarded in antiquity as two separate poems.

Prelude. I shall sing of Apollo, whose entry to Zeus's house causes the gods to spring up in fear, as he draws his shining bow. Leto alone remains beside Zeus. She unstrings his bow, closes his quiver, and taking it from his shoulders she hangs bow and quiver against a pillar of Zeus's hall, and leads him to his seat. Zeus offers him nectar and greets him, and the other gods do likewise. Then they take their seats again. And Leto rejoices to have borne a son who is so mighty an archer. Greetings to you, blessed Leto, because you bore such glorious children as Apollo and Artemis! To her you gave birth in Ortygia, to him in Delos, as you leaned against Mount Cynthus, close to the palm tree, by Inopus' streams.

These lines form a self-contained prelude, and could easily stand on their own as a hymn to Apollo, complete with his parents Zeus and Leto, and his sister Artemis. They announce the subject of the hymn, and immediately continue with a relative clause describing Apollo's entry to Zeus's palace on Olympus and his reception by the other gods, especially his parents Leto and Zeus.

THE HOMERIC HYMNS

Nature and purpose

The three poems studied in this book belong to a collection of thirty-three hymns in hexameter verse, composed in honour of ancient Greek gods and goddesses. Their title in the manuscripts is Ὁμήρου ὕμνοι. They vary considerably in length. In the collection as we have it, the four longest hymns, to Demeter (495 lines), Apollo (546 lines), Hermes (580 lines), and Aphrodite (293 lines), are preceded by the last section of a hymn to Dionysus, which originally must also have been a longer one. (For a possible reconstruction of this hymn see West (2001b); cf. also Dihle (2002) for a contrary view.) Of the others, the longest (H. 7, also to Dionysus) is fifty-nine lines, the shortest (H. 13, to Demeter) only three. Several deities are the subject of more than one hymn, and a few are short pieces composed of extracts from longer poems (13, 17, and 18 from the longer hymns to Demeter, the Dioscuri, and Hermes, and 25 from Hesiod's Theogony).

Most of these poems probably belong to the ‘Archaic’ period, i.e. between c. 700 and 500 bc, but some appear to be later in date. An Attic vase painting of c. 470 bc shows a boy holding a papyrus-roll, on which are written what appear to be the opening two words of Hymn 18.