Originally, the word hymn-derived from the Greek word humnos-denoted any song or form of poetry, but by the time the Homeric Hymns were composed, the word had come to denote only those poems honoring a god, which aligns with the modern sense of the word. The meter is widely employed in ancient Greek and Roman poetry. This meter is termed dactylic hexameter: There are six feet per verse line (a foot is a metrical unit consisting of syllables), and each line of feet contains a dactyl (a word or phrase that creates a single stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables). Despite the name, this collection of 33 hymns is not attributed to Homer but rather uses a form of meter, or rhythmic pattern, associated with his poetry. The anonymously written Homeric Hymns are thought to have been composed in the late 6th to early 7th century BCE, and the individual hymns vary in both authorship and composition date.
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