Of Heaven and Earth

Abstract

Abstract We are now ready to begin comparing the poetic traditions of early Greece with those developed in the Near East. At a later stage we shall be focussing on specific Greek authors, poems, and myths. The present chapter will be concerned with the wider framework of ideas about the gods, the world, and man’s place in the world, that are not peculiar to particular poets but form a common ground stock of conviction or convention. In Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and Hurro-Hittite poetry and myth, as in Greek, the gods appear as a society of individuals, some male, some female, similar to human beings in form, speech, psychology, and social arrangements, but far surpassing them in power. Each has his or her own name, character, and special sphere(s) of activity. For example, we find—admittedly not all in any one text or tradition—the weather-or storm-god, the sun-god, the god of war, the goddess of love, a goddess (who may or may not be the same one) who delights in battle, a divine messenger, and a divine smith, corresponding respectively to the Homeric Zeus, Helios, Ares, Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes, and Hephaestus.