Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 198-224

He will have the name Aeneas, because pain took me when I lay with a mortal. And your line will be the most close to the immortals of mortals. Surely Zeus seized Ganymede to live with the immortals and be Zeus' winebearer, a wonder to see. Pain took Tros, and he did not know where the wind had taken his son. But Zeus took pity, and gave him feet-lifting horse, and Hermes told him everything on Zeus' orders. When he heard Zeus' messages, he rejoiced and rode the horses. So too Dawn snatched Tithonus of your line. She went to ask Zeus for his immortality, and Zeus agreed. The fool -- she did not think to ask for youth. 


  • Agreed there's more here in these implicit comparisons, though none of them are exact parallels for Anchises' situations. 
  • The wind is fun -- a kind of example of Jorgensen's law, where Aphrodite knows what happened (Zeus snatched Ganymede) but the mortal only guesses that it was a wind 
  • explicit here that it's no fun to lay with a mortal; I think Thetis says something similar in the Iliad 
  • what does αγχιθεοι mean here? the most similar to the gods? most favored by the gods? and are all these snatchings really good things?

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