Library › Greek: Epic › Hymn 17 To the Dioscuri
Castor, tamer of horses, and blameless Polydeuces are summoned in Hymn 17 To the Dioscuri, a short Ancient Greek epic hymn from the Homeric collection. The poet names the twins sons of Leda, who bore them beneath the peak of Mount Taygetus after union with Zeus, and greets them in the traditional closing formula of the rhapsode’s prelude.
The hymn is a miniature companion to the fuller Hymn 33, which develops the twins’ role as rescuers of sailors; here the emphasis falls simply on their divine birth. Together the two poems document the widespread archaic cult of the Dioscuri, protectors of horsemen and seafarers.
About this edition. The Greek text is that of the Perseus Digital Library. Every word has been analyzed with odyCy, a neural language model for Ancient Greek — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from the Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek–English Lexicon (LSJ).