PAIDA young man or boy?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Dec 8 18:03:01 EST 2000


At 2:41 PM -0800 12/8/00, clayton stirling bartholomew wrote:
>on 12/08/00 2:29 PM, Christopher Hutson wrote:
>
>> On the age identification of a PAIS, Carl is correct that usage varies
>> widely
>
>Tony,
>
>Homer uses PAIS (PAIDOS) for Hephaisto the son of Hera in Iliad A:596. Since
>he is running around serving the nectar of the gods (booze) at a feast of
>the gods he must be at least 21 years of age or it wouldn't be legal.
>
>:-)))))

But from the point of view of most of the Olympians, Hephaestus was always
a "boy"--they gave him Aphrodite for a wife but couldn't make her faithful
to him; they really wouldn't have had him on Olympus but for the fact that
he made such exquisite things. He had a clubfoot, may have been a virgin
birth (Hera, acc. to some versions, had him parthenogenetically in a fit of
anger at Zeus delivering Athena from his head and/or Dionysus from his
thigh) and was thrown down to earth either by Zeus or by Hera or by both
because they couldn't stand him. Poor Heff was not altogether appreciated
in that rarefied atmosphere.


-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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