Buona domenica a tutti. I had a bit more trouble taking my fine tooth comb through this short passage, in which the power dynamic between Aphrodite and Zeus in matters of the heart is described.
33 τάων οὐ δύναται πεπιθεῖν φρένας οὐδʼ ἀπατῆσαι·
34 τῶν δʼ ἄλλων οὔ πέρ τι πεφυγμένον ἔστʼ Ἀφροδίτην
35 οὔτε θεῶν μακάρων οὔτε θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων.
36 καί τε παρὲκ Ζηνὸς νόον ἤγαγε τερπικεραύνου,
37 ὅς τε μέγιστός τʼ ἐστὶ μεγίστης τʼ ἔμμορε τιμῆς.
38 καί τε τοῦ, εὖτε θέλοι, πυκινὰς φρένας ἐξαπαφοῦσα
39 ῥηιδίως συνέμιξε καταθνητῇσι γυναιξίν,
40 Ἥρης ἐκλελαθοῦσα, κασιγνήτης ἀλόχου τε,
41 ἣ μέγα εἶδος ἀρίστη ἐν ἀθανάτῃσι θεῇσι.
42 κυδίστην δʼ ἄρα μιν τέκετο Κρόνος ἀγκυλομήτης
43 μήτηρ τε Ῥείη· Ζεὺς δʼ ἄφθιτα μήδεα εἰδὼς
44 αἰδοίην ἄλοχον ποιήσατο κέδνʼ εἰδυῖαν.
45 τῇ δὲ καὶ αὐτῇ Ζεὺς γλυκὺν ἵμερον ἔμβαλε θυμῷ
46 ἀνδρὶ καταθνητῷ μιχθήμεναι, ὄφρα τάχιστα
47 μηδʼ αὐτὴ βροτέης εὐνῆς ἀποεργμένη εἴη,
48 καί ποτʼ ἐπευξαμένη εἴπῃ μετὰ πᾶσι θεοῖσιν
49 ἡδὺ γελοιήσασα, φιλομμειδὴς Ἀφροδίτη,
50 ὥς ῥα θεοὺς συνέμιξε καταθνητῇσι γυναιξί,
51 καί τε καταθνητοὺς υἱεῖς τέκον ἀθανάτοισιν,
52 ὥς τε θεὰς ἀνέμιξε καταθνητοῖς ἀνθρώποις.34 - οὔ πέρ τι
How should I take πέρ? “There isn’t anyone (anything?) at all who has escaped..” ? The M-P participle threw me here as well but I see in LSJ that it can be taken with an active meaning.
36 - I assume παρὲκ should be taken adverbially with ἤγαγε rather than as a preposition with νόον?
ἐπεύχομαι confused me here. Excuse the translationese - I take this as:
…so that soon enough not even (μηδʼ) laughter-loving Aphrodite herself
might stay away from a mortal’s bed
and later (as a result of staying away) gloat among all the gods with a sweet laugh that…
General thought: This is the poem of γλυκὺν ἵμερον but I feel like ‘sweet longing’ in English really underplays what it makes gods and mortals do. The kids call it thirst nowadays.
Hi Sean. Good to see you back slumming it among us classicists.
34 οὔ πέρ τι. The περ simply intensifies ου. And τι neuter covers more than τινα. Absolutely nothing, cf. 3-6 (where πασιν is neuter too). 35 narrows it back down.
36 Ι take παρεκ the same way you do. It’s a real difference. You know Archilochus’ παρεκ το θειον χρημα in the Cologne epode?
43 You know Greg Nagy’s take on αφθιτα μηδεα as “unfailing genitals”?
45 Yes it’s the “whole and part” construction, like Iliadic “he hit him his arm.”
46ff. Yes μηδ’ αυτη “not even she herself”
But there seems a bit of disconnect here: Zeus gave her the hots for a mortal, so that (1) not even she could stay away from a mortal’s bed and (2) she could later boast that she made gods mate with mortal women and goddesses with mortal men. (1) is leading up to her union with Anchises, while (2) zooms in on Aphrodite’s role in crossing the divine/mortal barrier. In the normal course of events it’s Aphrodite who instills sweet desire (vv.1-2), but it takes the boss-god to instill it in her.
To me γλυκὺν ἵμερον is the perfect description, at once emotive and objective. It has a certain decorousness, but there’s no secret about what it leads to.
Well thank you Michael, this was a good laugh to wake up to this morning. I’m not going to be able to get this out of my head now in the same way I can’t read the name Thomas Didymus without thinking “Thomas Testicle”. I read Nagy’s appendix to Comparative Studies in Greek and Indic Meter where he talks about this, but I can’t work out if it’s a tour de force of etymological free association or the kind of thing you write on the back of old receipts on the bus.
Thanks for all your help with the rest. I prefer your ‘sweet desire’ to the standard ‘sweet longing’, which for me has a bit too much of wistfully staring out of a rain-streaked window about it.
Yes “longing” strikes me as more ποθος than ιμερος. Ιμερος is positive and forward-looking, about pleasure to come, while ποθος is about pleasure lost or unavailable, as bitter as it is sweet. But it’s only in Greek that the meaning is fully felt, not in bald English translation. Of course there’s a certain amount of interchangeability among these erotic avatars that flit around Kypris.