Saturday, April 11, 2015
The Divine Thing
Archilochus, fragment 196a = P. Colon. 58, lines 13-15 (tr. Douglas E. Gerber):
Related post: A Gift of the Gods.
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many are the delights the goddess offers young men besides the sacred actThe goddess here is Aphrodite. E. Degani, "ΠΑΡΕΞ ΤΟ ΘΕΙΟΝ ΧΡΗΜΑ nel nuovo Archiloco di Colonia," Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 20 (1975) 229, first connected the beginning of line 15 in the papyrus with Hesychius π 839 Schmidt:
τ]έρψιές εἰσι θεῆς
πολλαὶ νέοισιν ἀνδ[ράσιν
παρὲξ τὸ θεῖον χρῆμα
πάρεξ τὸ θεῖον χρῆμα· ἐξω τῆς μίξεωςIn other words, τὸ θεῖον χρῆμα (the divine thing) is ἡ μίξις (sexual intercourse).
Related post: A Gift of the Gods.
