Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 68-83
hAp 68-83
She [Aphrodite] reached Ida, the mother of beasts, and went straight to the hut. Behind her came wolves, lions, bears, and panthers. She delighted and threw desire in their hearts, and they lay down two-by-two in shadowy haunts.
She found the hero Anchises left alone. The others all followed cattle in grassy pastures, but he left alone went here and there playing the guitar thrillingly.
Zeus' daughter Aphrodite stood in front of him, looking like a single girl, so that he didn't get scared.
Hard not to see a foreshadowing of pastoral poetry in these lines (78-80):
οἳ δ᾽ ἅμα βουσὶν ἕποντο νομοὺς κατὰ ποιήεντας
πάντες: ὃ δὲ σταθμοῖσι λελειμμένος οἶος ἀπ᾽ ἄλλων
πωλεῖτ᾽ ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα διαπρύσιον κιθαρίζων.
Not only does Anchises play the role of the lovesick herdsman going here and there in his huts alone, singing piercingly on his guitar. But the others follow νομοὺς κατὰ ποιήεντας -- probably too much to read a pun on νόμους 'melodies'?
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