Homeric Hymn to Apollo, 402-450

hAp 402-450. Apollo as dolphin lies on the Cretans' ship, terrifying them and shaking the gear whenever someone looks at him. The south wind pushes the boat: past Cape Malea and Cape Tainaron (where Helios' flocks are), up the west coast of the Peloponnese past Pylos and Elis, and just within sight of Ithaca's high mountain. After sailing past the Peloponnese, a big west wind pushes ashore at Crisa. Apollo jumps out with sparks like a star, enters his adyton, and lights his shots; the women of Crisa cry out in fear. Apollo returns to the boat in the guise of a hairy, wide-shouldered young man.

1) Another catalogue of places -- each of the three big parts of this poem have had one. Richardson has a nice map of the ship's journey. The ship ends its journey at Crisa, probably in this poem just a term for the general area of Apollo's sanctuary (so Richardson on 269)

2) To me at least parts of the journey seem to evoke the Odyssey.  The boat first goes astray at Malea like Odysseus and Menelaus (cf. Od. 9.80 and 3.288), Helios' perennial (αἰεί) cattle at Taenaron are reminiscent of those at Thrinacia, and of course we have an actual mention of Ithaca, glimpsed from afar -- a little like how the Od. is glimpsed from afar here?

I see Richardson notes further verbal parallels between these cattle and the corresponding episode in the Odyssey (e.g. he says that τερψιμβρότου Ἠελίοιο only recurs in early epic in Od. 12); in the intro he says "in some cases the correspondence is particularly close and suggests a direct link [between the hymn and the Od.]" (16). 

3) Love the description of Apollo emerging with sparks and setting things on fire (440-447):

ἔνθ' ἐκ νηὸς ὄρουσεν ἄναξ ἑκάεργος Ἀπόλλων 
ἀστέρι εἰδόμενος μέσῳ ἤματι· τοῦ δ' ἀπὸ πολλαὶ 
σπινθαρίδες πωτῶντο, σέλας δ' εἰς οὐρανὸν ἷκεν· 
ἐς δ' ἄδυτον κατέδυσε διὰ τριπόδων ἐριτίμων. 
ἔνθ' ἄρ' ὅ γε φλόγα δαῖε πιφαυσκόμενος τὰ ἃ κῆλα, 
πᾶσαν δὲ Κρίσην κάτεχεν σέλας· αἱ δ' ὀλόλυξαν 
Κρισαίων ἄλοχοι καλλίζωνοί τε θύγατρες 
Φοίβου ὑπὸ ῥιπῆς· μέγα γὰρ δέος ἔμβαλ' ἑκάστῳ. 

Reminiscent a bit of Iliad 18.204-214, where Athena kindles a flame from Achilles' head gleaming toward the heavens (the σέλας δ' εἰς οὐρανὸν ἷκεν here in the hymn a bit like the Iliad's σέλας αἰθέρ᾽ ἵκανε). Presumably the flame, with accompanying spectacle, marks a momentous occasion there and here; also flame particularly appropriate for the tripods at Delphi.

Richardson also compares the radiance of Demeter and Aphrodite in their hymns (h. Dem. 188-9 and h. Aph. 81-90). 

4) love the epithet ἁλιστέφανον -- feels very familiar, but recurs only in Nonnus. I must be thinking of ἀμφίαλος?

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