THIS slight hymn was composed for a contest (19, 20), but there are no distinctive marks either of date or locality. Baumeister's theory of a Cyprian origin is as likely as any other, but cannot be proved from line 2, ἣ πάσης Κύπρου κρήδεμνα λέλογχεν (see h. Aphr. Introd. p. 198). The mention of the Cyprian Aphrodite is purely literary, and the title would be familiar to any Greek audience. The rhapsodist was certainly acquainted with Hesiod (see on 1, 3, 5, 12, 19), and no doubt also with the Cypria, where there occurs a similar description of the adornment of the goddess (see on 5). Indeed it would have been remarkable if the author of a hymn to Aphrodite had not been influenced by an epic in which she played so large a part. On the other hand, as Gemoll notes, there is no clear trace of any debt to the longer hymn to Aphrodite. The writer also obviously borrows from Ξ (see on 8, 14) and other parts of Homer, so that Baumeister is hardly too severe in speaking of him as rhapsodus inops ingenii. No great originality was looked for in a short and formal prelude.

Commentary on line 1

αἰδοίηΝ κτλ.: Gemoll compares Theog. 193 f. ἔνθεν ἔπειτα περίρρυτον ἵκετο Κύπρον,

ἐκ δ' ἔβη αἰδοίη καλὴ θεός, and Theog. 17 for the collocation χρυσοστέφανον καλήν. The epithet αἰδοίη reverend is the keynote of the hymn, and is suitable to a goddess whose cult, as Farnell observes (Cults ii. p. 668) is on the whole pure and austere; see also h. Aphr. Introd. p. 196.