"The Hymn to Hermes was composed by an unknown poet whose virtuoso deployment of formulaic traditions shows that he was a rhapsode - one of the highly trained and emotive live performers of epic (both new and, increasingly, canonical) in ancient Greece.1 He may well have performed his composition multiple times in different forms. However, as it is transmitted (see below, 5.1), we have evidence only for minor, localized rephrasing, and not for major recasting of the story. Hence we can consider our text to derive in its essence from one act of transcription, and to analyse when and for what circumstances the transcribed poem might have been designed. I examine the date in this section, and the circumstances in the next"--