Editing Actaeon (section)

==Parallels in Akkadian and Ugarit poems==
In the standard version of the ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]'' (tablet vi) there is a parallel, in the series of examples [[Gilgamesh]] gives [[Ishtar]] of her mistreatment of her serial lovers:
<blockquote>You loved the herdsman, shepherd and chief shepherd<br />                                                                                                                                                Who was always heaping up the glowing ashes for you,<br />                                                                                                                                      And cooked ewe-lambs for you every day.<br />                                                                                                                                                              But you hit him and turned him into a wolf,<br />                                                                                                                                                                     His own herd-boys hunt him down<br />
And his dogs tear at his haunches.<ref>"Gilgamesh VI" in ''Myths from Mesopotamia... a new translation by [[Stephanie Dalley]]'', rev. ed.2000:79; note 60, p. 129: "This metamorphosis has been compared to the Greek myth of Actaeon."</ref></blockquote> Actaeon, torn apart by dogs incited by Artemis, finds another Near Eastern parallel in the [[Ugarit]]ic hero [[Aqht]], torn apart by eagles incited by [[Anath]] who wanted his hunting bow.<ref>The comparison is made in Michael C. Astour, ''Hellenosemitica: an ethnic and cultural study of West Semitic  impact on Mycenaean Greece'' (Leiden:Brill, 1965).</ref>

The virginal Artemis of classical times is not directly comparable to Ishtar of the many lovers, but the [[mytheme]] of Artemis shooting [[Orion (mythology)|Orion]], was linked to her punishment of Actaeon by T.C.W. Stinton;<ref>Stinton "Euripides and the Judgement of Paris" (London, 1965:45 note 14) reprinted in Stinton, ''Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (London, 1990:51 note 14).</ref> the Greek context of the mortal's reproach to the amorous goddess is translated to the episode of [[Anchises]] and [[Aphrodite]].<ref>[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite]].</ref> [[Daphnis]] too was a herdsman loved by a goddess and punished by her: see [[Theocritus]]' First Idyll.<ref>Jasper Griffin, "Theocritus, the Iliad, and the East", ''The American Journal of Philology'' '''113'''.2 (Summer 1992:189-211) esp. pp 205f.</ref>