Homeric Hymns to Artemis (9 and 27)
Catalogue ID: 02-olympian-gods/102-homeric-hymn-artemis-9-27
Cycle: Olympian gods — Artemis / short Homeric Hymns
Version line: Homeric Hymns IX and XXVII — praise of the huntress; Delian and Olympian close
Sources: Homeric Hymn to Artemis (9); Homeric Hymn to Artemis (27)
Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/02-olympian-gods/102-homeric-hymn-artemis-9-27.md
Characters
- Artemis — maiden archer; huntress; dancer with Muses
- Meles — river where Hymn 9 waters the horses
- The Graces — join Artemis’s chorus
Places
- Pytho — where bow is hung and chorus begins
- Smyrna — Hymn 9’s itinerary toward Apollo
- Wilds — hunting grounds of Hymn 27
Themes
Narrative
Homeric Hymn 9 is a brief address to Artemis as twin sister of Apollo, maiden archer who, having watered her horses at the Meles, drives through Smyrna to Claros where Apollo sits waiting—an Asia Minor cultic itinerary in miniature. Homeric Hymn 27 paints her as gold-shafted huntress who, after ranging the mountains and trembling beasts, goes to Delphi (or the great house of her brother) to hang up her bow and lead the Graces and Muses in dance while Apollo plays the lyre; Leto rejoices in her fair children.
Together the short hymns give Artemis as horsewoman of Claros and as mountain huntress who returns to Apolline song—praise without the long Delian–Pythian narrative of Hymn 3. Catalogue them as the Artemis short-hymn atoms distinct from birth, Actaeon, Callisto, and Callimachus’s boons.