Original handout for

“Did it Take Time to Create Aphrodite?” ^HH

Venus and the Venereal Conference, Binghamton, NY, April 25-26, 2008

 

Go to the paper itself

 

 

#1       Aphrodite and the sea[1] in epic:

 

Hesiod, Theogony, vv. 182-206, my translation[2]:

 

            But (the severed genitals) “did not escape from (Cronus’s) hand in vain”:[3] Gaea took in as many of the bloody drops as sped away (from Uranus’s wound), and upon the turning of periods (periplomenōn eniautōn) (185) she engendered the powerful Furies and the great Giants of brilliant armor holding long spears in their hands, and over the boundless earth (she engendered) the nymphs called Ash.[4]

            Meanwhile, no sooner had (Cronus) first cut off the genitals with the hard-metal and thrown them from the land into the much-surging sea (190) than they were borne on the water polun chronon, with white foam arising all around from the deathless flesh (athanatou chroos), and in it a maiden was formed.

            First she came near to god-filled Cythera, and from there she reached sea-girt Cyprus. Out came a revered, beautiful god(dess), and “vegetation (195) grew around under”[5] her supple (or: slender?) feet; gods and men call her Aphrodite, [foam-born goddess, and well-garlanded Cytherea,](?)[6] because she was formed in foam (aphros); and then Cytherea in that she touched Cythera; and Cyprogenea in that she was born on sea-girt Cyprus, (200) and “lover of genitals,”[7] in that she came forth from genitals.

            Love attended her and beautiful Longing accompanied her, both at her first being born and at her going to the tribe of immortals; and she has this honor from olden times and has been receiving (this) lot among humans and immortal gods: (205) girlish whispering and smiles and trickery and sweet delight and affection and tenderness.[8]

 

Greek text:

… τὰ μὲν οὔ τι ἐτώσια ἔκφυγε χειρός·

ὅσσαι γὰρ ῥαθάμιγγες ἀπέσσυθεν αἱματόεσσαι,

πάσας δέξατο Γαῖα· περιπλομένων δ᾿ ἐνιαυτῶν

γείνατ᾿ Ἐρινῦς τε κρατερὰς μεγάλους τε Γίγαντας,                           185

τεύχεσι λαμπομένους, δολίχ᾿ ἔγχεα χερσὶν ἔχοντας,

Νύμφας θ᾿ ἃς Μελίας καλέουσ᾿ ἐπ᾿ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν.

μήδεα δ᾿ ὡς τὸ πρῶτον ἀποτιμήξας ἀδάμαντι

κάββαλ᾿ ἀπ᾿ ἠπείροιο πολυκλύστῳ ἐνὶ πόντῳ,

ὣς φέρετ᾿ ἂμ πἐλαγος πουλὺν χρόνον, ἀμφὶ δὲ λευκὸς                   190 

ἀφρὸς ἀπ᾿ ἀθανάτου χροὸς ὤρνυτο· τῷ δ᾿ ἔνι κούρη                              

ἐθρέφθη· πρῶτον δὲ Κυθήροισι ζαθέοισιν

ἔπλητ᾿, ἔνθεν ἔπειτα περίρρυτον ἵκετο Κύπρον.

ἐκ δ᾿ ἔβη αἰδοίη καλὴ θεός, ἀμφὶ δὲ ποίη

ποσσὶν ὕπο ῥαδινοῖσιν ἀέξετο· τὴν δ᾿ Ἀφροδίτην                             195 

[ἀφρογενέα τε θεὰν καὶ εὐστέφανον Κυθέρειαν]

κικλήσκουσι θεοί τε καὶ ἀνέρες, οὕνεκ᾿ ἐν ἀφρῷ                                  

θρέφθη· ἀτὰρ Κυθέρειαν, ὅτι προσέκυρσε Κυθήροις·

Κυπρογενέα δ᾿, ὅτι γέντο περικλύσῳ ἐνὶ Κύπρῳ·

ἠδὲ φιλομμειδέα, ὅτι μεδέων ἐξεφαάνθη.                                             200

τῇ δ᾿ Ἔρος ὡμάρτησε καὶ Ἵμερος ἔσπετο καλὸς

γεινομένῃ τὰ πρῶτα θεῶν τ᾿ ἐς φῦλον ἰούσῃ·                                           

ταύτην δ᾿ ἐξ ἀρχῆς τιμὴν ἔχει ἠδὲ λέλογχε

μοῖραν ἐν ἀνθρώποισι καὶ ἀθανάτοις θεοῖσι,

παρθενίους τ᾿ ὀάρους μειδήματά τ᾿ ἐξαπάτας τε                               205

τέρψίν τε γλυκερὴν φιλότητά τε μειλιχίην τε.

 

Select bibliography on the passage:

 

Arrighetti, Graziano, ed., Esiodo Opere (Turin, 1998), 331-32.

Arthur, Marylin B., “Cultural Strategies in Hesiod’s Theogony: Law,

            Family. Society,” Arethusa 15 (1982), 63-82, at 65-68.

Boedeker, Deborah Dickman, Aphrodite’s Entry into Greek Epic

            (Lugduni Batavorum, 1974), 8-17, 23-25.

Bonnafé, Annie, Eros et Eris. Mariages divins et mythe de succession

            chez Hésiode (Lyon, 1985), 28-35.

Budin, Stephanie Lynn, The Origin of Aphrodite (Bethesda, MD, 2003),

            69-70.

Clay, Jenny Strauss, Hesiod’s Cosmos (Cambridge, 2003), 18-19, 97-

            98.

Hansen, William, “Foam-Born Aphrodite and the Mythology of

            Transformation,” American Journal of Philology 121 (2000), 1-

            19.

Lev Kenaan, Vered, Pandora’s Senses. The Feminine Character of the

            Ancient Text (Madison, WI, 2008), 24-31.

Loraux, Nicole, The Children of Athena. Athenian Ideas about

            Citizenship and the Division between the Sexes, transl. C.

            Levine (Princeton, 1993), 91-92.

Marg, Walter, Hesiod Sämtliche Gedichte (Zürich and Stuttgart,

            1970), 128-33.

Muellner, Leonard, The Anger of Achilles. Mēnis in Greek Epic (Ithaca,

            1996), 60-66.

Pirenne-Delforge, Vinciane, “Prairie d’Aphrodite et jardin de Pandore.

            Le ‘féminin’ dans la Théogonie,” in Κέποι. De la religion à la

            philosophie. Mélanges offerts à André Motte, ed. É. Delruelle

            and V. Pirenne-Delforge (Liège, 2001), 83-99.

Rudhardt, Jean, Le rôle d’Éros et d’Aphrodite dans les cosmogonies

            grecques (Paris, 1986), 10-17.

Sale, William, “Aphrodite in the Theogony,” Transactions and

            Proceedings of the American Philological Association 92

            (1961), 508-21.

Schwabl, Hans, Hesiods Theogonie. Eine unitarische analyse (Vienna,

            1966), 39-40.

Stoddard, Kathryn, The Narrative Voice in the Theogony of Hesiod

            (Leiden, 2004), 164-66.

Sussman, Linda S., “The Birth of the Gods: Sexuality, Conflict and

            Cosmic Structure in Hesiod’s Theogony,” Ramus 7 (1978), 61-

            77.

Washbourne, Rose, “Hesiod’s Smile-loving, Member-loving

            Aphrodite,” La Parola del Passato 54 (1999), 135-45.

West, M. L., Hesiod. Theogony (Oxford, 1966), 212-13, 221-25.

Zeitlin, Froma I., “L’Origin de la Femme et la femme origine: la

            Pandore d’ Hésiode,” transl. F. Blaise, in Le métier du Mythe,

            ed. F. Blaise, P. Judet de la Combe and P. Rousseau (Villeneuve

            d’Ascq, 1996), 349-80, at 367.

 

Another epic sea association:

 

Homeric Hymn 6 is a short work (21 lines) addressed to Aphrodite. It says that the west wind Zephyr brought her across the sea, in foam, to Cyprus, where the Seasons (Horai) received her and dressed her for presentation to the gods, who were dazzled by her beauty.

 

Back to text

 

#2       “Time” for the earliest Greeks:

 

Some epic citations of “period-turning”:[9]

 

Od. 1.16; the narrator says that with “the turning of periods” (periplomenōn eniautōn) the gods decreed it was time for Odysseus to go home.

Od. 11.248; Odysseus relates that while in the underworld he encountered Tyro, who told him that the river-god Enipeus had impregnated her while she slept and told her to expect a child after “the turning of a period” (periplomenou eniatou).

 

Some expressions of quantitative duration:

 

Aside from straightforward expressions like “twenty days” (Il. 6.217), we have, e.g.: the war will last “as many years” as the number of sparrows a snake ate, i.e., nine (2.328); “all day” is the time it took Hephaestus to fall to earth after Zeus threw him out of Olympus (1.592) and the time over which the armies fought on the day Patroclus died (18.453); “all day long” is the time various groups spent feasting (Il. 1.601 = Od. 9.161 = 556 = 10.183 = 476 = 12.29 = 19.424) and the time the armies fought over the body of Achilles (Od. 24.41); Achilles says he fought for “days” (Il. 9.326); it takes “nine days and nights” for an anvil to fall from the sky to the ground (Theogony 722).

 

Some expressions of instants/occasions for action:

 

“At the point (of the daily cycle) that early-born rosy-fingered Dawn appeared” (Il. 1.477 = 24.788 = 20 cases in Od.); “at the point (of the daily cycle) that Sun passed to (the time of) unyoking oxen” (Il. 16.799 = Od. 9.58); “when the Greek ships assembled at Aulis to bring harm to Priam and the Trojans” (Il. 2.303-4); “the day will come when Troy will perish” (Il. 4.164); “at the point (of the yearly cycle) that the cuckoo cuckoos in the leaves of the oak” (Works and Days 486).

 

The term chronos in Homer and Hesiod only means qualitative duration, according to:

Hermann Fränkel, “Die Zeitauffassung in der frühgriechischen Literatur,” in his Wege und Formen frühgriechischen Denkens, 3rd ed. (Munich, 1968), 1-22 (essay originally 1931).

Somewhat contra:

Silvio Accame, “La concezione del tempo nell’età omerica ed arcaica,” Rivista di Filologia et di Istruzione Classica 89 (1961), 359-94, who, e.g., thinks a small chronos can effectively be an instant (but does not claim it means “occasion”).

 

A possible case of chronos being (loosely) sensed as connected to years, days, etc.:

 

In Book 19 of the Odyssey the visitor (i.e., the disguised Odysseus) answers Penelope’s question as to what Odysseus looked like when the visitor saw him, by stating that it would be difficult to say, because “so much chronos” has elapsed since then. Then in the very next sentence he says that it is now “the twentieth year (etos)” since he was at the given place (Od. 19.221-22).

 

Miscellaneous other studies of epic “time” (using the word in various senses):

 

Bakker, Egbert J., “Storytelling in the Future: Truth, Time, and Tense

            in Homeric Epic,” In Written Voices, Spoken Signs: Tradition,

            Performance, and the Epic Text, ed. E. Bakker and A. Kahane

            (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 11-36.

Hellwig, Brigitte, Raum und Zeit im homerischen Epos (Hildesheim,

            1964), 40-58, 115-25.

Leclerc, Marie-Christine, “Facettes du temps dans les Travaux et les

            jours   d’Hésiode,” Revue de Philologie 68 (1994), 147-63.

Pucci, Pietro, “Le cadre temporel de la volonté divine chez Homère,”

            in Constructions du temps dans le monde grec ancien, ed. C.

            Darbo-Peschanski (Paris, 2000), 33-48.

Purves, Alex, “Topographies of Time in Hesiod,” in Time and

            Temporality in the Ancient World, ed. R. M. Rosen

            (Philadelphia, 2004), 147-68.

------, “Falling into Time in Homer’s Iliad,” Classical Antiquity 25

            (2006), 179-209.

Radin, Alice P., “Sunrise, Sunset: ἦμος in Homeric Epic,” American

            Journal of Philology 32 (1988), 131-65.

Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, “Divine Time and Human Time,” in his The Black

            Hunter, transl. A. Szegedy-Maszak (Baltimore/London, 1986),

            39-60 (original French essay 1960).

Woodard, Roger D., “The Disruption of Time in Myth and Epic,”

            Arethusa 35 (2002), 83-98.

 

{Note added 7/2/08: An issue concerning the Greek sense of “time” that I did not have occasion to mention in the original conference paper, which was concerned with time as duration, but that I probably should have represented in the above bibliography, is what the Greeks thought about the simultaneity of different events, especially as manifested in Homeric epic. This has actually been a lively issue in the literature, some scholars holding that Homer did not understand that some pairs of events that one would believe happened simultaneously (such as the gods’ debates on Mt. Olympus vs. the battles on the ground) actually did so; others, that it was only a matter of the narrative form to present the events successively in the story as we have it. A recent discussion with good references to the debate is Ruth Scodel, “Zielinski’s Law Reconsidered,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 138 (2008), 107-25.

 

The matter very much affects the understanding of Hesiod’s Theogony, since for example, before the birth of Aphrodite discussed herein some births are related as having occurred via parthenogenesis from Earth, following the story of how some others came from Night by the same mechanism. One can well wonder whether or not the poet really thinks of these two developments as having occurred simultaneously.

 

Also, here it is probably good to remember that tests of Einstein’s relativity theory show definitively that the simultaneity of spatially separated events is not absolute, but depends on the state of motion of the observer. Hence our sense of such simultaneity must be a socially constructed phenomenon, and one might wonder if the earliest Greeks had yet developed it.}

 

{Note added 7/18/08:  A work not available to me at the original time of presentation is Time in Ancient Greek Literature. Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative, volume two, ed. I. J. F. de Jong and R. Nünlist (Leiden/Boston, 2007).  The first chapter by de Jong treats Homer and the second and third by Nünlist deal with Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns, respectively.  Their focus is the application of narratological concepts to time (in the sense of chronology, if not duration) in the narration of the poems.  For a review see Denis Feeney, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2008.07.24.}

 

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#3       Homeric uses of polun chronon beginning a verse’s second hemistich:

 

Il. 2.343; the elder statesman Nestor notes that the Greeks have been quarreling among themselves p. chr. (i.e., instead of fighting the Trojans).

Il. 3.157; the Trojans murmur to one another that both sides have suffered p. chr. for the sake of the woman Helen.

Il. 12.9; the narrator says that the wall the Greeks had built to protect their ships would not last p. chr.

Il. 14.206 = 14.305; the goddess Hera proposes to travel to visit her foster parents Oceanus and Tethys to reconcile them, since they have not had sex p. chr.

Od. 2.115; the suitor Antinous tells Penelope’s son Telemachus that if his mother puts off the suitors p. chr., her husband Odysseus being presumed dead, then they will use up the son’s inheritance.

Od. 4.543; Menelaus says he had been told not to spend p. chr. mourning the murder of his brother Agamemnon, but instead to return home to seek revenge or at least to bury him.

Od. 4.594; Telemachus asks Menelaus not to keep him p. chr., so that he can return home and attend to business.

Od. 4.675; the narrator says Penelope did not go p. chr. without learning of the suitors’ plans to ambush her son.

Od. 5.319; the narrator says Odysseus was under water p. chr. after his shipwreck.

Od. 11.161; Odysseus’s mother’s ghost asks him if he has wandered p. chr. before coming to Hades.

Od. 15.68; Menelaus tells Telemachus he will not detain the latter p. chr. if he wants to go home.

Od. 15.545; after Telemachus says he has an errand to run before joining his companions in the city upon their reaching home shores, one of them tells him not to worry because they will take care of matters even if he be gone p. chr.

Od. 16.267; Odysseus says Athena and Zeus will not delay p. chr. before helping vanquish the suitors.

Od. 21.70; Penelope challenges the suitors to string Odysseus’s bow, and says that they have been wasting the household of someone who has been gone p. chr.

Od. 24.218; Odysseus wonders if his father Laertes will recognize one who has been gone p. chr., as he has been.

 

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#4       On the signification of standard epic expressions. For Homer:

Edwards, Mark W., “Homeric Style and ‘Oral Poetics,’” in A New

            Companion to Homer, ed. I. Morris and B. Powell (Leiden/New

            York, 1997), 261-83.

Foley, John Miles, Immanent Art (Bloomington, 1991).

Kelly, Adrian, A Referential Commentary and Lexicon to Iliad VIII

            (Oxford, 2007), 3-4.

Vivante, Paolo, The Epithets in Homer (New Haven, 1982).

 

For Hesiod’s Works and Days:

Beall, E. F., “The Plow that Broke the Plain Epic Tradition: Hesiod

            Works and Days, vv. 414-503,” Classical Antiquity 23 (2004),

            1-32.

 

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#5       Theogony 190-91:

 

ὣς φέρετ᾿ ἂμ πἐλαγος πουλὺν χρόνον, ἀμφὶ δὲ λευκὸς  

ἀφρὸς ἀπ᾿ ἀθανάτου χροὸς ὤρνυτο· …                              

 

            Literal translation:

 

Thus the water bore (the genitals) on itself for much-duration, and all around white foam rose from the deathless flesh;

 

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#6       Works and Days 2-3, my translation. The Muses are addressed:

 

Come, speak of Zeus (Di’) and sing of your own father, he ­through (dia) whom mortal men equally are made famous and obscure.

 

Some references:

Konstan, David, in Classical World 101 (2007), 93-94.

Schroeder, C. M., in Cygnifiliana: essays in classics, comparative

            literature, and philosophy presented to Professor Roy Arthur

            Swanson, ed. Schroeder (New York, 2005), 160, 165 n. 2.

Verdenius, W. J., A Commentary on Hesiod. Works and Days, vv. 1-

            382 (Leiden, 1985), 4.

West, M. L., Hesiod. Works and Days (Oxford, 1978), 138-39.

 

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______________________

 

^HH I thank Stephanie Budin, Glenn Most, Marta Steele, and Kathryn Stoddard for their criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper.